The American Digimon
by NetRaptor
Summary: An American teenager wrestles with committing suicide, until the night a Digimon appears in his house. Now he and his fellow Digidestined must journey to the Digital World and defeat an enemy who is not what he seems. Completed.
1. Default Chapter

The American Digimon 

By NetRaptor 

[Copyright Notice: Digimon are owned by Bandai. Zach, Savannah, Rick, Tithonia and their partners are copyrighted 2003 by K. M. Hollar. Use of these characters without permission is strictly prohibited. 

A lot of the Digimon names within are very generic for the author wished to keep them easy to pronounce. If you have Digimon or characters with these same names, the resemblance is purely coincidental.] 

This story was written in protest of seasons 3 and 4, which departed too much from the originals for the author's taste. It is a stand-alone universe with original characters, and in the author's opinion, is what season 4 SHOULD have been. This fic is also a mild PG for jokes about drugs, some dark elements, and the word 'sucks'. 

________________ 

Chapter 1 

_Who's in the house? _

--Who's in the House, Carman 

"Psych ward again," Zach thought as he took a seat in the school psychiatrist's office. He slumped in the padded chair and let his hands dangle. He wondered what Miss Dingle would tell him about himself today. All he wanted was to get home. 

The school psychiatrist entered the room, a tall, brisk lady in a gray dress. She was carrying a thick folder under her arm, which she opened as she sat down at her desk. "Zach, what are you doing here?" she asked, mildly reproving. He stared at her in stony silence. "It's the third time this week," she added. She removed a pencil drawing from her file and slid to toward him. "What is this?" 

Zach didn't look at it. "I drew it at lunch," he muttered. 

"It depicts extreme violence," said Miss Dingle. "Have you been under stress lately?" 

"No." 

"Then why--" 

"Because I wanted to," said Zach, raising his voice. 

Miss Dingle clicked her tongue. "Violence is never necessary, Zach. I'm concerned about you. You're so talented, and yet you insist upon this negative behavior." 

Zach focused on her desk, letting her voice roll over him. She talked to him about anger management, and depression, and he was certain self-esteem was next. His self-esteem was low all the time, but on bad days, she told him it was 'very low'. 

"Are you listening to me?" 

He grunted something. He didn't want to be here, and this would make him miss the bus. 

She was saying something about trusting your feelings when he tuned her out completely and fiddled with the silver Celtic knot hanging around his neck. He just wanted to get the whole meeting over with. 

Then she was standing up, gathering her papers. He stood up, put on a fake smile and thanked her. "Today's chat has really made a difference," he said with almost too much irony in his voice. 

Miss Dingle didn't seem to notice, and smiled back. "I'm glad you're improving. I just want to see you happy." 

He was still rolling his eyes when he hoisted his backpack onto one shoulder and walked down the empty hall to the high school parking lot. He stepped into the October sunlight and scanned the end of the lot for buses, but there were none in sight. 

"They're all gone," said a voice behind him. Zach turned and saw a girl his own age, like himself dressed all in black with lots of silver jewelry. In addition she wore black lipstick and white face powder. She had been sitting against the wall, but was getting up and positioning her backpack. 

"Hi Savannah," said Zach. "You didn't have to wait for me." 

"I knew she'd make you late," said Savannah, flipping her long black hair out of her eyes. They walked across the parking lot and down the sidewalk. "Was it the picture?" 

"Yeah," said Zach, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "I wanted to keep that one, too. It looked just like him." 

"I guess that's a bad thing," said Savannah. "They knew who drew it right away." 

"Nobody else would draw Rick Sterling on a pike, that's for sure." 

They laughed. 

"I ought to draw the psych nurse that way," said Zach. "But then they'd really freak. Did Rick and the rest laugh when I got called?" 

"Yeah." 

Zach glared at the sidewalk. "I'll kill them all someday." 

They walked in silence a moment. The walk home was nice this time of year, because all of the trees were red and gold, and the air smelled of woodsmoke. It was only in midwinter that riding the buses became necessary. 

"Are you still taking your medication?" Savannah asked. 

"Yeah," said Zach, head down. "And I'm still depressed." He thought of the knife he had hidden in his drawer for when it all became too much. 

Savannah seemed to read his thoughts. "Can I come over tonight? I'll bring our DVD player." 

"No," he muttered. "Mom's working late or something." 

"Oh, okay." 

They walked in silence another moment. 

"Zach...don't do it tonight." 

He glanced at her. She always knew when he was contemplating suicide. When he didn't answer, she became more urgent. "Promise me, Zach. Promise me you'll be at school tomorrow." 

After a moment he shrugged and said, "Sure." 

They walked in silence until they reached their street, and the two parted ways. Zach made his way to a pale green house with peeling plaster and a lawn that needed mowing. He hoped his mother wasn't home as he opened the front door and dropped his backpack on the floor. "Mom?" 

The dusty house was silent. He walked into the kitchen and found a note on the counter. "Zach-- I have to work late tonight. I bought one of the steak dinners you like. Love you, Mom." So he hadn't lied to Savannah after all. 

He opened the freezer and looked at the frozen dinner waiting for him. All of a sudden he wished his mother were home. He closed the freezer door and went to his room. 

Zach's room was miniscule. Every inch of the of the walls were covered with posters of evil-looking bands in black, and the gaps between them were covered with his own drawings. They featured anime characters holding large guns and swords. The gory ones he kept hidden from his mother, or he would wind up at a professional shrink more often. 

He flipped on his computer and pulled off his shoes as it booted. It was an old 486 with a four-gig hardrive, not worth the money it would cost to upgrade. But it got him online, which was all that mattered. 

He went to the kitchen and swiped a pack of cookies as he waited for the modem to dial up, and returned as his chat software logged on. An instant message from Savannah popped up. "Hi! Wanna play Jedi?" 

"No," he typed with one hand, and shoved a cookie in his mouth with the other. He checked the weather for anything interesting ("Thunderstorm tonight," he told Savannah), then whisked off to his favorite anime sites. He posted a complaint on a messageboard about one of his best drawings being confiscated, and received replies from online friends with loads of sympathy. This cheered him somewhat. Then he read a long message from someone who was bashing his favorite show, which made him depressed again. 

It was dark outside by the time he was finished surfing. He left his computer downloading a video of an upcoming show and entered the dark kitchen to warm up his TV dinner. He stood at the microwave and watched the plastic-wrapped dish slowly fill with steam, the microwave casting the only light in the kitchen. 

He ate his solitary dinner in his dark room, illuminated by the blue glow of his monitor. It was so quiet he could hear the wind beginning to roar in the trees outside. "Maybe the power will go out," he thought with vague pleasure. The neighbors never trimmed their trees, and sometimes the branches shorted out the power lines. "But I'm not that lucky," he thought, determined to look on the dark side. 

He got up, went to the bathroom and removed two pills from a bottle in the medicine cabinet. He had forgotten to take his antidepressant when he got home, and should have taken them before eating. Oh well, he didn't care. He gulped the pills with a can of Pepsi and returned to his room. 

The wind was picking up outside, and thunder rattled his window. Somewhere in the neighborhood, someone's windchimes jangled a frantic tune. For a moment lightning lit his room like a floodlight. Unperturbed, he finished his meal and watched the progress bar on his download. 45%. 

As he waited, he reached into a desk drawer and pulled out the paring knife he had hidden there. He fondled it, turning it over, feeling the cold blade. He gazed at it, thinking of death, and wondering if he was strong enough to cut the veins in his wrists. "My life sucks, anyway," he told himself, thinking of the school psychiatrist, and Rick's sneer at lunch. 

The progress bar hadn't moved for several minutes now, he noticed. He leaned forward and looked at the indicator on the bottom of his browser. Contacting Host. Maybe a line blew down somewhere. As he watched, the indicator changed to the longest DNS entry he had ever seen. It had forty or fifty numbers, separated into groups of three. 

A crack split the silence, so loud that the house shook. Zach jumped and nearly fell out of his chair, and his computer screen went blank. As thunder rolled away into the distance, he bolted for the front door. It sounded like lightning had struck right outside... 

He stepped onto the porch and saw the power pole across the street. It was blackened from top to bottom, and in places was still burning. One of the crosspieces had been blown to splinters, and power lines sagged toward the street. 

They were still giving off blue sparks, so Zach retreated inside. He wondered if Savannah had heard it, but it was too dark to see her house. He went to his room and picked up his cellphone, but it told him that service was unavailable. Stupid phone. He tossed it on his bed and eyed his computer, wondering if it had been cooked by a power surge. If so, maybe he could get a new one. 

The monitor was still glowing, black with a blue square in the center. He pressed the button to turn it off, but it didn't respond. Of course, his monitor would have to be the thing that got fried, which was the most expensive part of a computer setup... 

Something rustled in the kitchen. 

Zach froze. A prowler? Great, and when all the power was out, too. He glanced at his knife, decided it was too small, and groped in the darkness for his bed. Underneath it was his old metal baseball bat. Armed with this weapon, he crept down the hall toward the kitchen, keeping close to the wall. The prowler was making a lot of noise, and it sounded like he was tearing up the kitchen. "How did he get in?" Zach wondered to himself. "Did I walk past him when I went to the front door...?" 

He reached the doorway and cautiously edged one eye around the corner. The kitchen was pitch black, for it had no windows, but he thought he could see something moving. "Freeze!" he snarled. 

The sounds stopped. 

"What are you doing in our house?" 

"I'm hungry," replied the intruder. His voice was raspy, like a kid with a sore throat. 

"You are, huh?" said Zach, wondering if it were the truth. "I've got a gun. You'd better get out, now." 

"No you don't. It's a baseball bat," replied the prowler. "You can't see, can you?" 

Zach opened his mouth, but the prowler went on, "There's a flashlight in here somewhere, I just saw it. Hold on." There was more rustling, then a metallic clink, and a powerful beam shot into the darkness. The visitor aimed it at the ceiling to diffuse the beam, and Zach stared. 

It looked like a big lizard standing on two legs. Actually, more like a small Jurassic Park T-rex. It was three feet tall, dark green, and holding the flashlight in its front paws. It was looking at him with round, pale eyes. As if this weren't startling enough, its jaws moved and it said, "That's better. Are you going to hit me, Zach?" 

Zach slowly lowered the baseball bat. "You're a talking dinosaur?" 

"My name is Spikemon," replied the creature. "I'm a dinosaur type, if that's what you mean." Spikemon set the flashlight on the counter, pointing upwards, then returned to the open pantry. He waddled when he walked, as if his feet were too big for him. Zach stepped forward as the creature began to paw through the pantry again. "There's some cookies in my room, if that's what you want." 

"Oh good! Cookies!" said the dinosaur. He walked around Zach and down the hall toward his room, as if the creature had lived there all his life. Zach grabbed the flashlight and followed, wondering if his antidepressants caused hallucinations. 

Spikemon was waiting for him, his square head twisted over his shoulder. His eyes glowed green as the flashlight glinted in his face. "So where are they?" he asked in his raspy voice. 

Zach opened the pack of cookies and set it on the floor. "There, help yourself." He watched as Spikemon selected a cookie with a clawed forepaw, sniffed it, and then ate it in one bite. Zach leaned back in his chair. If this was a hallucination, he might as well enjoy it. "So where you from?" 

"The Digital World," replied Spikemon, picking up a cookie in either paw. 

"Uh huh," said Zach. "And where's that?" 

Spikemon cocked his head and looked at him. "I'm not sure. It's another world. Only a Digidestined can get there, and only a very powerful Digimon can come here." 

"Digimon. I get it. That's somebody from the Digital World." 

"Yup!" Spikemon gulped two cookies and licked his sharp teeth. 

An uncomfortable thought was hovering at the back of Zach's mind, but he refused to think about it. "So are you a very powerful Digimon?" 

"Me?" Spikemon bared his chocolate-stained teeth in an unmistakable grin. "No, I'm not powerful. I won't be powerful until my fifth birthday. I'm only two years old now." 

The uncomfortable thought in Zach's mind was growing stronger. "So why are you here?" 

"Because you're my Digidestined partner. And since you didn't come when you got your digivice, I got to come to you." 

Zach forced down his uneasiness. This could only be a dream. "Digivice?" he said, smiling. "I don't have any otherworldly gadgets." 

Spikemon's eyes widened. "Oh no. You haven't found your digivice?" 

"Should I have?" 

Spikemon bounded up on Zach's bed so quickly Zach was startled. The digimon circled, sniffing, then jumped back to the floor. Head down, he explored the room, sniffing and muttering, "It's got to be here, this couldn't happen if it wasn't, maybe it got lost--Don't you ever clean your room?" 

"Are you a digi-thingy or my mom?" Zach replied. The uncomfortable thought was trickling into his head: what if he wasn't hallucinating? 

But a second later Spikemon was beside him, lifting a small object off the desk beside Zach's elbow. "Here it is! You must not have seen it in the dark." His warm paw placed it in Zach's hand, and Zach examined it. It was shaped like a teardrop, with a screen in the fat end. In the small end were two empty slots. It was red with white trim, and had a little loop in the top for wearing around the neck. 

"This is a digivice, and it's very important," said Spikemon. "There's only one in the whole Digital World right now, and it's in the Gigaterra museum. It's what makes you Digidestined." 

"Yeah, great," said Zach. He was tired of the weirdness, and ready for it all to go away. "Okay Spiky, go home and leave me alone. I'm getting a headache." 

"You are?" Spikemon peered anxiously into his face. "I know what would make you feel better! Why don't you come to the Digital World for a few minutes? Just to look around?" 

"No, I don't think--" 

But Spikemon was excited at the prospect of showing his new partner a different world, and seized Zach's hand in his claws. "Hold the digivice up to the computer screen--like this--then press the blue button!" His claws dug into Zach's fingers, forcing him to press the button. 

"Ow!" Zach yelped. At the same time there was a flash of light from the computer screen, and then-- 

Being translated into data was a bizarre feeling. Zach felt as if his body had crystallized, and for an instant he couldn't move. Then there was a shattering feeling, and with a shock Zach realized he was flying through space with vague, shadowy objects moving around him. The weirdest part was the sight of millions of tiny squares flying toward him as if he were a magnet. He felt nothing, however, and an instant later the universe resolved itself, and he was standing on a grassy hill in the Digital World. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 

Life is mostly froth and bubble,   
Two things stand like stone,  
Kindness in another's trouble,  
Courage in your own.   
-Adam Lindsay Gordon  


Digital Time was the same as Real Time, and it was night. However, it was not dark--the world was a dim blue, and brilliant, enormous stars blazed in the sky above. Dark masses of indigo trees stood all around, and the chirping of crickets rose from the grass. 

Spikemon looked the same, except for his excitement. He capered around Zach's feet, clapping his paws and shouting, "We're here, we're here!" 

Zach turned in a circle, not quite believing this was happening, looking for his computer screen. It was nowhere in sight. Panic struck his stomach like a brick, along with the realization that this world was probably real. "Spikemon, how do I get home?" 

"Your digivice, silly," said Spikemon, as if Zach were making a joke. "It'll take you home whenever you want." 

Zach lifted the device, which was still in his hand, and looked at the screen. Two minutes had elapsed since entry. 

"C'mon," said Spikemon, pawing at his partner's pants, "I want to show you Digiforum, where I live!" 

"Oh, okay," said Zach faintly, and let Spikemon lead him deeper into the digital night. 

As he walked, Zach became aware that there were elements in his brain that were absent in the real world. If he thought about himself, he instantly knew that he was Zachariah Holling, age 16, run: 6, swim: 3, fly: 0, power: 2, courage level: 4, morale level: medium. He also knew the exact time--7:43 PM--as if it were hardwired into the world around him. With another jolt Zach realized that if this were not a dream, then he was in a strange world with a strange creature, brought there for a reason he didn't know by a device he didn't understand. The thought sent a wave of sickness through him, and for a moment he stopped and stood staring at nothing. 

Presently Spikemon reappeared. "Hey Zach, why'd you stop?" He looked up at his partner and touched a dangling hand with a gentle paw. He read Zach's stats and realized that his morale was extremely low. Zach was afraid. 

The little green dinosaur frowned up at him, wondering what he ought to do. Spikemon had never been afraid in his life, and had little patience for emotions he did not understand. He pushed his square head under Zach's hand. "I'm here. Nothing will happen, this area is safe." When Zach did not respond, Spikemon grew impatient. "Come on, move! Only hatchlings are afraid of the dark." 

"Oh yeah?" Zach snapped, looking down at his companion. "You try being dragged to an alternate dimension by a freak, not to mention having all this weird stuff put into your mind! Did you read my--my stats?" 

"Yeah, and you're scared," replied Spikemon, glaring. "You can't be my partner if you're scared." 

"Who says?" 

"I say!" 

"Then maybe you should find a new partner," said Zach, turning away. "Go on, go find one! I'm going home." He began pushing buttons on his digivice, trying to find an option that would send him home. 

Spikemon snorted. "Fine, I will! And you'll be sorry tomorrow, because you'll think this was great." He stalked away stiff-legged into the blue night. 

"No I won't!" Zach yelled after him. He found a screen that listed Spikemon's statistics, and glanced over them. Element: fire, run: 7, swim: 5, fly:1, power: 3, courage level: 4, morale: low. Then another screen that said, "Open Digiport, Yes/No?" 

But before he could press the blue button, he heard Spikemon yell, "Spark Blast!" A flash of orange lit the trees in the direction Spikemon had gone. A second later another voice screeched, "Night Wings!" There was a flash of blue, and Spikemon screamed. Zach's digivice changed to show Spikemon's stats again, but now they had an additional entry. Wounded: 5%. 

Zach stood with his digivice in hand, frozen in indecision. Spikemon was a jerk, but he was in trouble, and if they were supposed to be partners--No, he didn't want to get involved. He would go home and forget the whole thing. He changed screens to the Digiport again and selected 'Yes'. 

A bright hole appeared in the air a few inches from Zach's digivice. Before he could step through it, Spikemon cried, "Zach!" The digimon's voice was a wail of desperation. Without thinking, Zach turned and bolted toward Spikemon's voice. 

The trees grew in clumps here and there, and just beyond one of these clumps Spikemon lay on the ground, pinned beneath the claw of a bat the size of a chimpanzee, which was clawing its way toward his throat. 

"Hey!" Zach yelled as he ran toward the pair. "Leave him alone! Get! Get!" 

The bat's head jerked up and a pair of red eyes glared with startled fear at the oncoming human. 

"Get out of here!" Zach seized a stone and threw it. It smacked the enemy digimon between the eyes. The bat hissed in pain, withdrew from Spikemon, and crouched. "Night Wings!" it snarled, and reared up, making slashing motions with its wings. 

Some programmed instinct in Zach's digital identity made him drop flat as bright silver arcs of energy sliced the air above him. "Spikemon, get up!" he yelled as the bat landed and extended its claws to the dinosaur again. 

To Zach's relief, Spikemon scrambled to his feet, and what was more, he was raging mad. "How dare you attack my partner!" he roared at the bat. "Spark Blast!" He opened his mouth and spouted a red fireball at the bat, which shielded itself with its wings and screamed as the fire struck it. 

"You're not worth it!" hissed the bat, and leaped into the sky and was gone, leaving behind it the odor of singed hair. 

Spikemon walked to Zach, grinning as only a carnivorous dinosaur could grin. "We did it! We beat Echomon!" 

"Yeah, we did," said Zach, who was just beginning to think about what had happened. "Are you okay?" 

"Yeah, he grazed me with a Night Wing attack," said Spikemon, extending a forearm with a long burn along it. 

Zach was beginning to shake and had to sit down. "I thought you said this area was safe!" 

"I thought it was," said Spikemon, licking his burn. "Echomon's not bad compared to some of the viruses that come through here. But us vaccines keep them at bay." 

Neither spoke for a moment. Zach forced himself to breathe deeply, although memories of Echomon's red eyes kept flashing before him. After a moment he asked, "Why did you guys yell out what you were going to do?" 

"Our attacks?" Spikemon looked thoughtful. "All Digimon do it. I never thought about it before. If you don't, your attack won't work." 

"So it's like a computer command to load the attack program?" 

Spikemon considered this. "I guess it is. I never thought about it." He licked his burn again, then clawed up a clod of dirt and rubbed it on his skin. 

"So do you think you need me now?" Zach asked. 

Spikemon glanced at him sideways. "I was doing fine on my own." 

"Then why'd you yell my name?" 

Spikemon looked away and said nothing. 

Zach smiled. "It's a good thing I'm not as big of a sissy as you are." 

"Who's a sissy?" snapped Spikemon. 

Zach continued to smile, and the digimon slowly did, too. "I guess we're partners, then." 

"And you're stuck with me." Zach rubbed Spikemon's head and rose to his feet. "I seriously want to go home. You can show me your hometown tomorrow morning." 

"Okay." Spikemon brushed the dirt from his arm as Zach reopened the portal. Before they stepped through, the digimon nudged his partner's leg. "I get to sleep on your bed, right?" 

Zach eyed him. "We'll see." 

Then the pair stepped through the digiport, and were transported back to the Real World. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 

_Behind the laughter painted eyes  
Deep in the shadows where we hide  
The sun climbs high and the sun goes down  
On people waiting to be found  
Waiting to be Found--Ashton, Becker, Dente_  


It was 7:30 AM, and the morning sun slanted through the trees along Lewis road, where Zach and Savannah lived. Savannah was waiting at the bus stop on the corner, a little apart from the other kids. They pretended not to see her, but some cast nervous looks at her just the same. With her black clothes, straight black hair, and black makeup, she looked like a vampire. She was wearing a large purple crystal around her neck today, which she kept fingering as if she wanted to curse them with it. 

In reality, Savannah was worried about Zach. He had logged off the chat with his usual dark farewell, and then the power had gone out. She knew how a little thing like having his drawing taken away could affect him, and was growing more and more anxious as the minutes ticked by. Where was he? His mother's car was in the driveway. If he had killed himself, wouldn't she have found him by now? If she heard sirens, she knew she would throw up. She clutched her crystal and prayed to the universe that Zach was okay. 

His door banged open and he bolted into sight, carrying his backpack in one hand and shoving the remains of toast in his mouth with the other. He ran halfway down the street, then slowed to his usual slouching walk, looking as sinister as Savannah did. She heaved a relieved sigh, which she masked from the other kids with a shrug. Maybe her crystal had worked after all. 

Zach was still chewing as he walked up to Savannah and nodded to her. "Where were you?" she whispered, pointing to her black wristwatch. 

"Overslept," he muttered. He hooked his backpack over one shoulder and whispered, "I need to talk to you about something." 

"Me too," she whispered back. "You first." 

"No, you." 

Savannah reached into her pants pocket. "I found this last night. Is it yours?" She held out her hand, and Zach's eyes popped. She was holding a green digivice exactly like his own. 

"Put it back!" he hissed, looking sidelong at the other kids. "That's what I need to talk to you about." 

Confused, Savannah pocketed the device, but there was no time for questions, for the bus arrived in a whoosh of exhaust. They boarded it and found seats in the back. They stared down each new student coming down the aisle, and as a result everyone sat at the front of the bus, as far as possible from the Goths. 

Once the bus was in motion, Savannah turned to Zach. "Okay, what?" 

He reached down the front of his black sweatshirt and pulled out his own digivice, which he had put on a string. "I've got one, too. They're called digivices." 

"Okay, but what are they? I never bought one of these." Savannah pulled out her own and compared it to his. 

Zach grinned the rare grin he showed only to her. "They link us to an alternate dimension called the Digital World. I went there last night." 

Savannah's eyebrows lifted. "How much medication are you on?" 

"It was real, Sav! I thought I was dreaming, but when I woke up this morning Spikemon was still there. He's my partner, and I had to hide him in my room. If Mom sees him she'll flip out." 

Savannah inspected him. "You don't look stoned..." 

"I'm not high!" Zach pushed her away. "Look, come home with me after school and I'll show Spikemon to you." He stuffed his digivice back under his shirt, then froze as a new idea occurred to him. "Savannah ... you have a partner, too!" 

She looked incredulous, but there was no time for further discussion, for the bus had arrived at school and it was time to leave. 

* * *

Zach doodled during algebra and dozed through history, wishing the day would pass quicker. At lunch he found Savannah and they sat in the corner together. "Look," he said, pulling out his binder. Sketched on a sheet of paper within was an incredibly realistic dinosaur, like a young tyrannosaurus. "This is Spikemon," he said, sliding it toward Savannah. "He's green, and has light brown stripes on his back, but I left my markers at home." 

"Nice," said Savannah. She stared at it, frowning, then said, "So, you're telling me--" 

"Telling her what, Holling?" 

They looked up to see Rick Sterling standing over their table, grinning. He was carrying a cafeteria tray in one hand, and with the other he grabbed Zach's sketch, tore it free and held it up. "Will ya look at that! Freaky boy is doing cute little dinosaurs now!" 

The other jocks laughed, and Rick's current girlfriend tittered. Zach stood up. "Give it back, Sterling." 

"Oh? Who's gonna make me?" said Rick, leering. "A puny geeky Goth and his--" Here he called Savannah a word which brought her to her feet, raging. This elicited more guffaws from the crowd gathering around them. 

"I'm going to kill you," whispered Zach, clenching his fists. He saw a nark run off in the background, and snatched for his drawing. 

Rick held it over his head. "Skinny boy can't reach! Maybe if he played football he'd have some muscles!" He crumpled up the paper, threw it under the tables and walked off. He had seen the nark, too. 

Zach and Savannah sat down again, too angry to speak. A teacher arrived on the scene and stalked past, looking for suspects, but left them alone. Rick went unchallenged as well. 

"They never punish him," fumed Zach. "Just because he plays football..." He grabbed his binder and began to scribble an image of Rick dying a gruesome death. But he was distracted again when a voice said, "Are you okay?" 

Zach and Savannah looked up to see a freshman in nondescript clothing, and black hair in braids. She was holding Zach's crumpled drawing. "Yeah," Zach said stiffly. Freshmen were as far below sophomores as sophomores were from juniors, and according to pecking order, this girl had no right to speak to them. 

But she smoothed out his drawing and handed it back to him. "It's good," she said, then ducked her head and returned to her seat. 

Zach kept drawing and ignored the crumpled paper beside his lunch tray, but Savannah folded it and put it in her own backpack. "Don't let them see that one," she whispered. "I have to go to study hall." 

Zach nodded without taking his eyes from his paper. He was pouring all of his hatred into the look of agony on the cartoon Rick's face. 

* * *

Zach and Savannah walked home again, this time so they could talk. Zach had forgotten Rick in his excitement over showing Savannah the Digital World. He positively chattered, and Savannah began to wonder if he was telling the truth. She had never seen Zach like this. As they turned onto Lewis road, Zach asked, "Could you come have dinner with us? I asked Mom this morning, she's expecting you." 

"Okay, okay," said Savannah. "Let me tell Mom where I'm going." 

Zach waited outside as Savannah climbed the steps to her front door and went inside. Her yard was mowed, and their house had been replastered last year. Her dad was an illustrator for several magazines, and between that and Savannah's mother's night job, they could afford such luxuries as a new computer and fancy art software. Zach wondered what they would do if they knew Savannah was about to get a new pet. 

A moment later Savannah emerged and clattered down the steps, carrying a stack of homework under one arm. Her mother came to the screen door. "Home by eight, Savannah." 

"Okay Mom!" Savannah called, and raced up the street with Zach. 

"Mom's not home yet," said Zach as he unlocked the door. "Perfect. Hey Spikemon, I'm home!" 

There came the thud of a door being flung open, then the rattle of claws on wood floor. Savannah peered around Zach and shrieked as a bipedal shape bolted toward them. 

"Zach!" Spikemon half-roared, and flung his forearms around Zach's knee. Then he saw Savannah and backed up. "Who's that?" 

"This is Savannah, my friend," said Zach. "She's a digidestined, too, because she has a digivice." 

Spikemon stared at her, and sniffed her proffered hand. "I thought you were Jokemon for a minute," he said apologetically. He waved his short tail to and fro. "Is your mouth black all the time?" 

"No, this is make-up," said Savannah, looking amazed at the conversation. "Um. I can wash it off." 

"Good idea," said Spikemon, his tail still swaying. "Jokemon is a virus type. Your partner might attack you by mistake." 

With an odd look at Zach, Savannah hurried to the bathroom. Zach detoured to the kitchen. 

"Spikemon, that was rude," he said, digging through the pantry. Spikemon watched his partner with interest and said nothing. 

"You hear me?" said Zach, emerging from the pantry with a bag of tortilla chips. 

"I heard you," said Spikemon. "I was rude. Can I have some?" 

Savannah reappeared, her gothic makeup scrubbed off, looking like a normal girl with a dark complexion. "Hello," said Spikemon. "So that's what you look like!" 

"Yeah." Savannah did not dare feel offended, and in a daze made herself a sandwich, watching Spikemon out of the corner of her eye. 

Between them, Zach and Spikemon polished off a whole bag of chips and two cans of Pepsi. "Mm, I feel like I could digivolve today!" said Spikemon. "And maybe your partner is in Digiforum, Savannah." 

"Oh," she said, trying to look as if she understood this. 

Once snacktime was over, the three entered Zach's room. Zach pulled out his digivice. "Okay Sav, this is going to feel weird, but don't worry, it's perfectly safe." 

"Has it been extensively tested?" asked Savannah. Her sense of humor was returning. The idea of travelling through a computer to a different world seemed ridiculous. 

"I think so," said Zach. "Get your digivice, hold it up like this, and press the blue button. Watch." Spikemon curved a paw around Zach's leg, and Zach pressed the button. A white box appeared on the screen, and Zach and Spikemon melted forward and vanished through the screen in a swirl of color. 

Savannah stood still, staring. She had seen such things happen in movies, but to see someone vanish right in front of her was unnerving. The white box on the screen remained open, waiting. She looked at the device in her hand, fighting back the urge to scream. The digivice's screen announced that Zachariah Holling had successfully entered the Digital World. 

With a surge of skepticism that temporarily outweighed her fear, Savannah held her device toward the screen and pressed the blue button. 

She did not like the conversion to data at all, but kept from screaming until she had landed beside Zach and Spikemon in a grassy meadow. Then she screamed and stood panting, looking around at the afternoon sun streaming over the grass. 

"Aw c'mon, it wasn't that bad, was it?" said Zach, grinning. 

"No," said Savannah, "just weird. I have--I have numbers in my head!" Like Zach, she instantly knew that it was 4:15 PM, and that she was Savannah Reed, age: 16, run: 5, swim: 3, fly: 0, power: 1, knowledge level: 6, morale level: medium. She recited them to Zach, who announced that he was higher in run and power, but he had a courage level, not a knowledge level. 

"What happens if your 'fly' starts going up?" asked Savannah as they began walking, Spikemon in the lead. 

"I don't know, maybe you grow wings," said Zach, grinning like an idiot. "This is the ultimate in coolness. Our own world that nobody else on Earth knows about!" 

"There have been other Digidestined," said Spikemon over his shoulder. "They were from your world. But we haven't had any for years now." 

"All that matters is that there's none here right now," said Zach. "How far is Digiforum?" 

"Not far," said Spikemon as they entered the trees. "We go down a hill and it's at the bottom." 

Savannah's digivice beeped, and she checked it. "Scanning for partner," she read aloud. "Locating ... uh, I think it glitched." She showed it to Zach. Where the device ought to have displayed a name, there was a line of gibberish. 

"That's weird," said Zach, pressing a button to change the screen. As he did the gibberish changed to the word 'Ropemon'. "Oh, there it goes," said Zach. "Hey Spikemon, know anybody named Ropemon?" 

"Nope," said the dinosaur. "But a lot of digimon live in Digiforum." 

"Ropemon is within half a kilometer, I think," said Savannah, squinting at the tiny screen. "What will a Ropemon look like?" 

"A coil of rope with eyes," said Zach. "Or maybe a snake." 

"A snake," said Savannah thoughtfully. "I'd be okay with a snake. As long as I don't get a kitten or a teddy bear or something." 

"Oh, that's Monzaemon," said Spikemon. "He lives in Gigaterra, though." 

Zach and Savannah snickered. 

They walked on through the trees, a warm wind brushing their faces. The trees looked normal enough from a distance, but if one drew close, the texture of the bark appeared in a grid of tiny squares. "Data," said Spikemon with a shrug. 

Savannah plucked a leaf and held it against her palm. The delicate veins were made up of tiny pixels, although it smelled and felt like a leaf. To her complete surprise, the leaf evaporated into tiny particles that drifted to the ground like confetti. "Spikemon, why did it do that?" she called ahead. 

Spikemon looked over his shoulder. "Its data collapsed. Now the tree will gather data from the ground and generate another." 

"This is weird," muttered Savannah to Zach. 

"Yeah," he replied, picking a leaf for himself. After a while, it too evaporated. 

The trees began to thin ahead of them, and the breeze freshened. As they moved closer to the edge of the forest, the three caught whiffs of woodsmoke. Spikemon paused and sniffed. "Funny," he remarked to Zach as his partner caught up with him. "It's not cold enough to light the bonfires. I wonder if something's wrong?" The little dinosaur trotted ahead, tail waving nervously. 

Then the echo of a roar came to them, carried on the wind. Spikemon broke into a run, and Zach bolted after him, Savannah on his heels. "Spikemon! Wait up!" 

The roar came again, the sound of an enormous beast bellowing in anger. Spikemon vanished from sight among the trees, but Zach and Savannah found him a minute later, looking down with flared nostrils. Perhaps five hundred feet away, down the hill, was an old-fashioned fort made of logs. A few buildings were visible above the log walls. 

What caught their attention was the beast circling the fort, snorting fire at its wooden walls. It looked like a stegosaurus, twenty feet tall with enormous diamond-shaped fins on its back, and a tail studded with metal tipped spikes. Its sides were covered in horny scales, and all four feet were armed with sharp talons. 

"Now that is Jurassic Park gone wrong," panted Zach, watching it. 

"It's a virus-type," growled Spikemon through his teeth. "He's going to burn down Digiforum if I don't do something!" He started forward, but Zach grabbed him by the tail. 

"Wait a minute. We can't just attack that thing! We need guns or something!" 

"You wouldn't last five minutes," said Savannah, holding up her digivice. "I got a reading on him. He's Loricamon, champion level, and his stats are higher than all of ours put together." 

"All the more reason to take him down!" snarled Spikemon, struggling. "Let go, Zach!" He writhed out of his partner's grasp and galloped down the hill, roaring a squeaky battle roar. 

Zach looked at Savannah. "He's such a brat. What do we do now?" 

"Go after him, dummy," said Savannah. "He's going to fight, and all you can do is keep him from getting killed. I'm going to find Ropemon. Maybe he can help." 

"That thing's huge!" said Zach as Loricamon whirled to face Spikemon. "I'm not going down there!" 

"Then sit here and watch," said Savannah, looking at her screen. "I'm going to find my partner." 

She slipped down the hill at an angle to the two dinosaurs, leaving Zach crouched in the grass, wishing he were anywhere but in the Digital World. 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 

_Danger and delight grow on one stalk. -English Proverb_

Savannah jogged down the hill, trying to act inconspicuous. Loricamon was grinning at Spikemon, who was attacking him with multiple Spark Blasts, which glanced off Loricamon's armored hide without leaving a scratch. Savannah watched as Loricamon swiped one clawed forepaw and knocked Spikemon fifteen feet. "Zach, do something," she muttered. 

As puny as Spikemon's attack was, he had attracted Loricamon's complete attention. Savannah slipped past the monstrous stegosaur unnoticed and arrived at the town's gates, which were locked and barred. She knocked and called, "Can someone let me in? Please?" 

A round eye peered through a gap. "Who are you?" 

"I'm Savannah," she said. "I'm a Digidestined, and I think my partner is in there." 

The eye looked her up and down skeptically. "Where's your digivice?" 

Savannah held it up. 

The eye gazed at it. "Is it real?" 

There was a scuffling of feet, and a new eye peered through above the original eye. "Of course it's real!" sputtered the newcomer. "Let her in, hurry up!" 

There was a rattling of locks and chains, and the gate swung open just wide enough for Savannah to slip through. She entered and found herself surrounded by frightened, knee-high digimon. The two at the gate were a green gecko with a trumpet wound around its neck, and a squat, purple tadpole. They locked the gate, then looked up at her. "Are you really human?" asked the purple tadpole. 

"Yes," said Savannah, looking at her digivice. "Does anybody know a Ropemon?" 

A murmur ran through the little crowd as each creature asked the question of its neighbor. "Well, we have a nursery full of in-training digimon," said the gecko, knotting his skinny fingers together. "Come with me, I'll show you." 

A roar from Loricamon outside sent all the digimon scurrying for cover, and a trembling Geckomon led Savannah inside a nearby log building. The ceiling was low, and she had to stoop as she entered. 

Inside were several dozen tiny puffballs of various colors, some with ears, others with horns, and all with large, liquid eyes. They looked up at Savannah with awe, mouths falling open. She held up her digivice. "Which one of you is Ropemon?" 

"Me! Me!" one of them squeaked, inching forward. Savannah frowned in a mixture of alarm and disappointment. A foot-long Twinkie with eyes was crawling toward her, its green eyes shining in delight. She consulted her digivice and saw that this was indeed Ropemon, in-training level, and all of his stats were at 1. 

He was at her feet now, and smiled up at her. "I've been waiting for you," he said. 

She stooped and picked up the long, soft body. "My friend's digimon is out fighting Loricamon. Do you think you could help?" 

"Sure!" said Ropemon, lifting his upper body in a cobra-like attitude. "As long as you come with me." 

Savannah carried her new partner outside, fighting overwhelming disappointment. She had wanted something fierce, like Spikemon, not a plush fat snake-thing. She doubted that Ropemon could help drive off Loricamon, but she was determined to try. If Zach hadn't come down to help his digimon, then Spikemon was probably dead. 

The gates were shut, and all the digimon who had been there before were now in hiding. "Hello?" she called. "Can someone open the gate for me?" Nothing happened. They had been eager to protect her from harm, but no one wanted to let her out again. 

Nearby a ladder leaned against the stockade wall. Savannah looped Ropemon around her neck and climbed it. "How are we going to get out?" he asked as she arrived at the top of the wall. It was fifteen feet high. 

"I don't know," said Savannah. "Look, Spikemon's okay!" 

The little green dinosaur was a short distance away, making lunges at the giant stegosaur's face, then dodging out of reach. He was leading Loricamon away from the fort. Loricamon was foaming at the mouth and snarling, but his main ability was strength, not speed. Spikemon was nimble enough to avoid his attacks. Zach had descended halfway down the hill and was shouting encouragement. 

"Oh good, maybe we don't have to fight," said Ropemon. "I don't like fighting." 

"We're going down there anyway," said Savannah. "Look, if I hang over like this and drop, it won't be so far." 

It was further than it looked. Savannah winded herself upon landing and had to sit still until her lungs started working again. Ropemon dropped to the ground and slithered off a few feet, lifting his head to peer above the grass for Loricamon. "Savannah," he hissed, "he's coming back!" 

Tired of his elusive quarry, Loricamon abandoned Spikemon and prowled back toward Digiforum, tiny eyes red with fury and deadly tail lashing from side to side. "Savannah, get out of there!" Zach yelled. 

Panting and holding her side, Savannah stood up. Her motion attracted Loricamon's attention, and he smiled and turned in her direction. "Shoot," said Savannah. 

She snatched up Ropemon and tried to run, but Loricamon had anticipated this. He reared up on his hind legs, thirty feet tall, and roared, "Plate Barrage!" He fell forward on all fours, and the fins on his back blasted forward and sliced into the ground around Savannah, their data converting from leathery hide to steel blades. One of them bounced sideways and knocked her flat, flinging Ropemon from her arms. 

Smarting from her fall, Savannah struggled to her feet, looking around for Loricamon. He was twenty feet away and coming fast, stubby teeth bared. "Zach!" she shrieked, darting sideways, Ropemon forgotten in her panic. The ground was littered with fallen plates, some sticking in the ground, and she had to weave around them, slowing down as she went. Loricamon walked right through them, their data dissolving and reappearing atop his back. 

Zach and Spikemon were running toward her, but they were too far away. Loricamon would reach her first. She looked back at the charging dinosaur and saw Ropemon curled on the ground between her and her enemy, soft pudgy head raised in defiance. "Ropemon, get away!" she screamed. 

In her hand, her digivice's screen flashed white. On the ground, Ropemon's body dissolved into a white blur. Savannah stopped and stared, and so did Loricamon, snorting. Bits of data were being sucked into Ropemon's body, and it was growing bigger. A second later Ropemon's body solidified into five feet of orange and red snake, looped with shining steel bands. He lifted his head to a more impressive height and hissed. 

"You're only a rookie!" rumbled Loricamon scornfully. "I'll take you down first!" The stegosaur charged, teeth bared, clawed feet ready to pound and slash. The snake waited, motionless, then hissed shrilly, "Snakebite!" His entire length lashed forward like a cracking whip and his venomous fangs buried themselves in Loricamon's cheek. 

The stegosaur howled in pain and shook his head, flinging off the former Ropemon and pawing at the side of his face. Then he wheeled and lumbered off at a great pace, bellowing and moaning as he went. 

Savannah stood still, mouth open, clutching her digivice. Her reptilian partner lifted his head and looked around, dazed. "Did I win?" he asked, flicking out a forked tongue. 

"Ropemon!" shrieked Savannah, running to him and lifting up his glistening coils. 

"Hissmon, now," said the digimon. "I digivolved to Rookie level." 

Before his partner could grasp this, Zach and Spikemon arrived, gasping for breath. "Whoa--that was--awesome," said Zach, holding his side. "Is he--your partner?" 

"Another Digidestined?" said Hissmon, as calm as if he had not just driven off a killer digimon. "Pleased to meet you, and your partner, too." 

"Hi," replied Spikemon. "It's cool you digivolved. I'm Spikemon." The little green dinosaur stretched up to sniff at Hissmon's dangling tail, then bared his teeth and backed away. "You're a virus-type!" 

"A benign virus," said Hissmon, tossing an anxious glance at Savannah. "There are benign viruses here, just as there are rogue vaccine types." He cast a dark look at Spikemon. 

Spikemon growled. "I'm not a rogue, and I'm no virus, either." He snapped at Hissmon, but Zach pulled him back by the tail. 

"Hey! That's her partner!" 

"He's a virus, and I hate viruses!" snarled Spikemon, struggling. He snapped at Hissmon again, who whipped his long body out of reach, around Savannah's shoulders. At the same time, Savannah kicked Spikemon in the ribs. He stumbled, then glared at her. "Why'd you kick me?" 

"I'll kick you if you do that again," said Zach, folding his arms. "Leave him alone!" 

Spikemon snorted and lowered his head, and Hissmon looked smug. 

There was an awkward silence, broken as Zach walked toward Digiforum's log walls. "Can we get in now?" Spikemon followed him, head and tail drooping. Savannah trailed after, stroking Hissmon's sleek scales. 

* * *

Two creatures watched the results of the battle on a wide screen in a darkened room. They watched in silence as Zach, Savannah and their digimon entered Digiforum, and were greeted with cheers from the inhabitants. 

"There are only two," said one, his mandibles clicking. 

"Yes," hissed the other, heads weaving. "But more will come. A new hour has dawned in the Digital World." He spoke with all five heads, which gave his words a resonating hum. One of his heads lashed at the screen, teeth bared. "They will upset the balance of light and darkness. Who is nearest Digiforum?" 

"Loricamon," replied the other, his voice an insectoid hiss. "But he is injured." 

"Send him extra data," said three of the brooding heads. "I want Digiforum leveled." 

"But sir, it contains a regeneration node." 

There was silence a moment. Two of the heads looked thoughtful, while the others snarled. "Destroy everything except the node." 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 

_The gingham dog and the calico cat   
Side by side on the table sat;   
T'was half past twelve, and (what do you think!)   
Nor one nor t'other had slept a wink!   
The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate   
Appeared to know as sure as fate   
There was going to be a terrible spat   
(I wasn't there; I simply state  
What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)   
--The Duel, Eugene Field _  


Spikemon's low morale lifted a bit as the inhabitants of Digiforum gathered around him, patting him on the back and congratulating him on his battle performance. He was one of the few vaccine types in the village, and always helped defend them from marauding digimon. The only thanks he did not appreciate came from the Gotsumon, who were made of rock, and could not pat anyone on the back without leaving bruises. Everyone stared at Zach in awe, and they all wanted to see his digivice. 

The inhabitants had already met Savannah, and Hissmon drew his own crowd of admirers when Savannah mentioned that he had both digivolved and made the winning attack. Spikemon watched Hissmon draw off his own admirers, and growled deep in his throat. Zach nudged him. "Knock it off. You can't be jealous of another Digidestined's partner." 

"Oh year?" said the dinosaur, glaring at Hissmon. "Just watch me." 

In another ten minutes the crowd had dispersed, as some of the digimon ventured outside the gates to investigate the damage Loricamon had done to the walls. Savannah walked up to Zach. "It's five-thirty. Should we go back before your mom gets home?" 

"Oh!" said Zach, clapping a hand to his forehead. "I forgot. Yeah, we'd better go. But what are we going to do with these two?" He motioned to their partners. 

Savannah looked at Hissmon. "Do you think you could stay in the Digital World for an hour or two? It'd be better than being locked in Zach's room." 

Hissmon and Spikemon regarded each other. "Only an hour?" said Spikemon. 

"Yeah," said Zach. "We have to eat dinner. I'll bring some back for you." 

Spikemon glowered at Hissmon. "Okay, sure. I can stay in the Digital World for an hour." 

Hissmon reluctantly uncoiled from Savannah's shoulders and slithered to the ground. "Hurry back," he said, pulling his length into a shining knot. 

Spikemon smiled and waved as Zach and Savannah opened a portal and vanished through it. As the portal closed up on itself, the green dinosaur turned to the snake. "I'm going to thrash you." 

The snake bared his venomous fangs. "Are you sure?" 

"Heck yeah." And Spikemon pounced. 

* * *

Zach and Savannah appeared in Zach's room and stood listening for a few seconds. The little house was silent. "She's not home yet," said Zach, exhaling. He stowed his digivice in a desk drawer, and glanced in dismay at his backpack, which contained a formidable amount of homework. Savannah tucked her own digivice into her pocket and followed Zach's gaze. "Uh oh." 

"How about we take it to the Digital World after dinner?" suggested Zach, his eyes lighting up. "I'll bet somebody would help us with it." 

Savannah pulled out her homework and examined it. "I think I could do half of this over dinner. Think your mom would mind?" 

"Naw." Suddenly weary, Zach flopped on his bed. "Man, I'm tired." 

Savannah swiped a pencil from Zach's desk and began to fill in answers on a question sheet. "Did you take your medication?" 

"I'll take it before dinner," said Zach. 

Neither spoke for a few minutes. Outside, a car door slammed, and the front door opened. "Zach, I'm home," called his mother's voice. 

"Okay," called Zach without moving. 

The bedroom door opened, and a dark-haired woman looked in. "Oh, hi Savannah. Doing your homework over here tonight?" 

"Yes, Mrs. Holling," said Savannah, smiling the smile reserved for adults. 

Mrs. Holling smiled and said, "Frozen dinners was all I had on the menu for tonight. Is that okay?" 

"Sure, that's fine," said Savannah, returning her gaze to her homework. 

Mrs. Holling looked at her son. "Zach, are you okay?" 

"I'm fine Mom, just tired," said Zach, without opening his eyes. "I'm hungry. And shut the door." 

His mother gave him an irritated look and departed, closing the door. 

Twenty minutes later, Savannah and Zach covered the kitchen table with homework books and papers, and they had a quiet, distracted meal. Mrs. Holling was tired, and aside from some preliminary small talk, she said little. 

They had finished eating, and Zach and Savannah were racing through their homework, when something began to beep in Zach's room. The three looked at each other, and then Zach and Savannah stampeded to the rear bedroom. Concerned, Mrs. Holling followed them. "What is that? Is something wrong?" 

Zach arrived first and yanked open his desk drawer. His digivice screen was flashing red. He glanced at Savannah, who pulled out her own digivice. It began to beep and flash in her hand. Then they turned in horror as Zach's mother entered behind them, and saw their digivices. 

There was a split second of frantic silence. Then Zach held out his digivice and said unconcernedly, "These are gigapets. They're all the rage at school, and--" His eyes shifted to Savannah. "--I think we forgot to feed them." 

"Oh, that's cute," said Mrs. Holling. "Can you turn them down, please?" She walked back into the kitchen, and the two Digidestined exchanged terrified glances. 

The screens of their digivices read, "Warning! Spikemon/Hissmon status critical! Damage 100%! Warning!" 

"What do we do?" whispered Savannah. 

"We've got to go back," whispered Zach. "Go now, I'll feed Mom a story and come as soon as I can." He darted out of the room as Savannah held her digivice toward the computer screen. 

Trying to calm his thundering heart, Zach gathered up their neglected homework from the kitchen table. "We're going to do our homework in there," he said, hoping his voice wasn't quavering. "Then, uh, we're going to watch a movie on my computer, so..." He trailed off, aware of how quickly he could ruin everything. Avoiding his mother's questioning look, he lifted the books and papers and sprinted for his room. He slammed the door, dumped everything on his bed, and snatched up his digivice. Then he hesitated. He was unarmed, and if Spikemon was down, he had no way of defending himself. On impulse he grabbed the baseball bat he had menaced Spikemon with, and opened the digiportal. 

It was night again in the Digital World, but the light was a dark blue instead of black, and Zach could see. His digivice still flashing, he dashed across the now-familiar meadow and through the woods toward Digiforum. 

He smelled moke as he neared the crest of the hill, and stopped for breath at the top. Below him, Digiforum was in flames. Small, half-lit figures ran about, confused and terrified. Loricamon was there, and in the dim light it seemed he had grown twice his former size, and was demolishing a section of the walls with sweeps of his powerful tail. 

"I hate you," whispered Zach. Then he lifted his bat and charged down the slope. 

Savannah was one of the small figures fleeing the town. Hissmon was slung over her shoulder, as limp as a spaghetti noodle, and she was dragging Spikemon by one arm. "Take him," she gasped as Zach ran up. 

Zach hooked his arms under Spikemon and lifted him, grunting at the dinosaur's weight. Spikemon moaned and flopped his head over Zach's shoulder. "What happened?" Zach asked, his breath coming in jerks from running. Savannah was leading the way back up the hill, and had no breath for a reply. 

Halfway up they had to stop and rest, and laid their digimon on the grass. In the combined light from the bright stars and the burning town, they examined their partners. Hissmon was bleeding from four deep bites along his body, and was unconscious, his unlidded eyes staring at nothing. Spikemon had three small bites on his right forearm, but they had hardly bled at all. He looked up at Zach and smiled. 

"What happened?" Zach asked. 

"We fought," said Spikemon dreamily. "I jumped Hissmon ... and he bit me ... and I bit him ... his venom is making the world turn funny colors..." His speech died away in an insensible giggle. 

Zach and Savannah looked at each other. "It made him high," said Savannah, fighting back a laugh. 

Zach would have laughed, too, had he not been so frightened. "High nothing, he's overdosed. Spikemon, don't go to sleep!" 

But Spikemon was slipping into unconsciousness with a smile on his face, and Zach's digivice began to flash again. "No!" wailed Zach, shaking Spikemon. "Don't do this!" Perhaps Loricamon heard him, or perhaps a superior directed the stegosaur toward them. At any rate, the clawed, armored monster abandoned his demolition of Digiforum and stalked up the hill toward the Digidestined, snorting fire with every breath. 

Savannah lifted Hissmon's yard of limp body and ran for the hilltop. Swearing, Zach tried to pull Spikemon to his feet, but it seemed that the dinosaur's weight had increased, and he could not. Loricamon was coming fast, his eyes glowing red against the night. Zach sat still for half a second, panting, gripping his baseball bat in one hand and Spikemon's forepaw in the other. His rage was becoming cold fear. Loricamon was bigger, uglier and scalier than he had realized, and those claws could tear him in half with one swipe. All he had to defend himself with was a stoned digimon and a baseball bat. 

He got up and retreated several steps, then paused and looked back. Loricamon was looking at Spikemon with a grin, as if he meant to exact revenge for Spikemon's attack of a few hours before. He swaggered up to Spikemon's fallen form and sniffed it, fire sparking from his nostrils. 

There was no chance in a million that Zach would survive a fight with a champion-level digimon, but he was not thinking rationally. With a battlecry he ran forward and struck Loricamon across the face with his bat. 

The dinosaur recoiled, jaws open, but before he could attack, Zach hit him again with a crack of metal on bone. Loricamon swiped at him with his long claws, but Zach jumped aside. Fear, anger and adrenaline were so mixed in him that the data his body was composed of began to rewrite. 

Zach leaped in and struck Loricamon on the jaw, the eyebrow, the cheek, anywhere he could land a blow. But Loricamon lunged forward, jaws open, and nearly knocked Zach over. Zach scrambled away, panting, then turned again to face his enemy. He raised his bat, but before he could swing it, something clicked in his mind and he felt the bat become a digital weapon. "Strike one!" he yelled, and swung. The path the bat traced through the air became a green arc that slashed into Loricamon's side like a laser beam. "Strike two!" he yelled, and the beam this time was yellow. "Strike three, you're out!" he yelled, and swung the bat again. 

A blast of energy erupted from the end of the bat, and struck Loricamon with such power that it knocked the enormous beast off its feet and sent him tumbling down the hill. 

Zach stood still, holding the bat, gasping, not quite believing what had just happened. Down the hill, Loricamon lay in an unmoving heap. "I killed him," breathed Zach, looking in awe at his bat. For a second he thought it winked at him, but he had no time to look closer, for Spikemon stirred and groaned. Zach moved to his side. His adrenaline was wearing off, and suddenly he was dog-tired. His arms shook as he lay down the bat and touched Spikemon's head. 

"I feel sick," said the dinosaur, struggling to rise. "What happened?" He cocked his head and saw the burning village, and Loricamon's fallen body. His eyes widened. "Who took out Loricamon?" 

"I did," said Zach, "with my baseball bat." 

Spikemon gazed at his partner in newfound admiration. "Boy, I'm glad you didn't use it on me that night!" 

"Look out!" came Savannah's distant shriek. 

Zach and Spikemon ducked as something enormous swept overhead, something that blotted out the stars with wings as wide as a circus tent. It flew down the hill and landed on Loricamon. In the light of the fire, Zach saw it was a bird, an enormous black bird with chains around its feet and stretched across its back. It stood over Loricamon for a moment, then beat its massive wings and soared away into the night, the wind from its wings flattening the grass. 

Loricamon lifted his head and heaved himself onto his feet. 

"Oh heck," muttered Spikemon and Zach in unison. 

Zach picked up his baseball bat and stood, but the fight adrenaline had left him, and his body felt slow and heavy. The bat felt as if it weighed fifty pounds. "We'd better run," he said to his partner. 

"Right," said Spikemon, struggling to stand. He only managed this by hanging on to Zach's pantleg, and he was trembling from the after-effects of Hissmon's poison. 

Loricamon roared and charged toward them, completely recovered. 

Spikemon looked up at Zach, then rested his head against Zach's knee and closed his eyes. Zach gripped his bat with both hands. "I took him out before. I can take him out again. He stepped forward to defend Spikemon a second time. 

There was a twinkle of light at Zach's feet, and the glanced down. Lying on the grass was a plastic strip the size of a stick of gum with a strange symbol on it. Even as the ground began to shake under Loricamon's footfalls, he picked it up and looked at it. It looked like a tiny keycard... 

Suddenly Zach understood. He pulled his digivice out of his pocket. So that was what went in those two slots on the side. He inserted the stick with a satisfying click. 

Digivolution activate, said the screen. 

Spikemon jumped away from Zach with a whoop, and his body melted into a white sphere. Data was sucked out of Zach's digivice as he grew bigger and bigger, and began to reform into a tyrannosaur shape. He whooped again, and this time it was a roar. He whirled, jaws open, as his new form took shape: a dark green tyrannosaur with a short, square muzzle, and a long, metal-tipped horn above each eye. "Carnomon!" he said, towering eight feet above Zach. "It would have taken two more years to grow this big! Time to show Loricamon who's boss, eh?" And he bolted down the hill to meet the stegosaur. 

"Yeah! Give it to him! Eat him up!" cheered a strange voice nearby. Zach jumped and looked around, even as Carnomon's "Horn Rush!" echoed over the hillside. 

"Who is that?" 

"Oh, don't mind me," said the voice. "I love a good fight, that's all. Oh, you shouldn't have quit Little League when you did." 

Suspicious, Zach looked down and saw his baseball bat was looking up at him. "You could have hit a home run the way you walloped that lizard," it said. It looked the same as it had while under his bed--silver with a black stripe around the end--but it had sprouted eyes and a mouth just above the handle. Zach picked it up, but was distracted as Carnomon roared, "Flame Breath!" and bathed Loricamon in a torrent of orange flame. 

"Go for it! Get him!" whooped the bat. 

"Zach?" came Savannah's voice. She was creeping down the hill toward him, cradling Hissmon in her arms. "Where's Spikemon? And who's that talking?" 

"My bat," said Zach, holding it up so she could see its face. "It's alive." 

"You bet I'm alive," said the bat. "Zach converted me to data when he used me as a weapon. The Digital World has odd rules, doesn't it?" 

Savannah was only half listening, staring in awe at Carnomon as the enormous Digimon teased Loricamon. "Is that Spikemon?" 

"He digivolved," said Zach. He was suddenly aware that his courage level had gone from 4 to 5, and his power was now 3. He was also aware that he was exhausted. 

"I'm going to take Hissmon home," said Savannah, sounding worried. "We have bandages and stuff at home, and I think Mom will let me keep a snake. And it's almost eight." 

"Aw, right as it was getting good," complained the baseball bat. 

"Go ahead," said Zach. "If Carnomon actually kills Lorry, it probably won't be pretty." 

As he spoke, Loricamon gave an anguished cry and sank to the ground, his data streaming away in all directions like smoke. Within sections he was gone, and Carnomon roared in triumph. 

"I did not want to see that," said Savannah, opening a digiport. She vanished through it as Carnomon climbed the hill toward Zach. His sides were heaving and his jaws were streaked with foam, but he looked happy. "That was the awesomest battle I ever had! Thanks, Zach." 

"Right," said Zach. "Now I've got to make you smaller." 

"Try taking out the data stick," said the baseball bat. 

"What in the?" said Carnomon, sniffing at the bat. "You can talk?" 

"Call me Base," said the bat. "I spent the last five minutes naming myself. I prefer Excaliber, but it's too gaudy, you know?" 

Zach pulled the data stick out of his digivice, and Carnomon shrank back into Spikemon, his excess data collecting in the data stick. "Now that's what they call a shrinking sensation," said Spikemon. He shook his head, then looked over his shoulder at Digiforum. The residents were using various water attacks to douse the flames, and a great cloud of steam was rising from it. 

"Don't leave me alone again," said Spikemon. 

"Okay," said Zach. "We'd better go now, I'm wiped." 

"Hey, what about me?" demanded Base. "Don't I get any thanks?" 

"Just shut up," said Zach, opening a digiport. 

It was a phrase he would use often in the days to come. 


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 

_Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.   
- Helen Keller _

Spikemon opened his eyes. He was in a narrow space, stretched out on a towel, and the light was dim. He sniffed, wondering where he was and why his arm hurt. Gradually he remembered that he was in Zach's room behind the bed, and his arm was sore from Hissmon's bites. He licked his swollen, feverish skin, then rested his head on the towel. Zach must have already gone to school. Spikemon could hear Zach's mother tidying up the house. He listened to her movements, too ill to care. 

After a while he heard her close and lock the front door, and knew she was gone. He heaved himself to his feet and dragged himself through the house, looking for water. His questing nose guided him to the bathroom, where he found a tall porcelain well of water. He slaked his thirst and returned to Zach's room, dizzy and feverish, and climbed up on the bed. He burrowed under the covers and fell asleep for the rest of the day, comforted by Zach's smell. 

* * * 

Zach was overtired, and could not focus on his classes. He had slept poorly that night, constantly waking up to check Spikemon, who kept whimpering in his sleep. When he did drop off, he dreamed of Loricamon evaporating into data fragments. 

"Zacheriah!" snapped his history teacher. 

Zach looked up to find the eyes of the whole class on him. 

"What year did the Civil War begin?" 

He was aware she had asked him the question once already. He dredged his mind for a pertinent date, turned up nothing, and ventured, "1776?" 

The class guffawed, and the teacher fixed him with an irritated stare. "The answer is 1861, Holling. Pay attention next time!" 

Zach looked down, furiously embarrassed, aware that Rick Sterling was leering at him. He tried to pay attention for the remainder of the class, but his mind kept wandering back to Spikemon. 

The bell rang, and Zach joined the crowd swarming into the hall. PE was next, he remembered with an inner groan. Why they had it on Friday was beyond him. Maybe they wanted to make their victims sore all weekend. 

He deposited his books in his locker, then hurried out to the football field behind the school. He knew he had phys-ed with Rick and his buddies, and felt a stony resentment building up in him. They would pick on him and push him around and--no, don't think about that. Think about how strong you need to be to survive in the Digital World. 

But it was lousy. They ran fifteen laps around the field, with Rick pelting him with dirty words and bits of gravel. Then they played a vicious game of dodgeball, and Rick kicked the ball into Zach's stomach and winded him. 

After that was lunch, and Zach sat with Savannah in the cafeteria, staring at his plate and knowing he would throw up if he took a bite. He slumped in his chair and closed his eyes. 

"Hey," Savannah said in a low voice, "how's Spikemon?" 

"Pretty sick," Zach mumbled. "He whined all night, and he was asleep when I left." 

"Hissmon's bad off, too," said Savannah, drawing patterns on her tray with her fork. "I told Mom he's a boa constrictor from school who got hurt and they need me to nurse him. I put him in an old fish tank. He just sleeps." 

Zach folded his arms over his aching stomach and shut his eyes again. "I wish we could go live in the Digital World." 

"I've been trying to think of a way to spend the weekend there," said Savannah. "Maybe if I told Mom I was staying at your house, and you told your mom you were staying at my house..." She paused. 

Zach opened his eyes. The freshman girl with her hair in braids was standing at their table, gazing at Zach. As he looked at her, she murmured, "Have you done any more dinosaur drawings?" 

"No," he said. "I don't draw dinosaurs." 

"Oh." She looked down and walked away, so inconspicuous she blended into the background at once. 

Savannah peered after her. "She's in my music appreciation class. I never noticed her before." 

The bell rang and the two parted ways until three-thirty, when they met in the parking lot and walked home together. Zach was feeling better by this time, and was worrying about Spikemon. "If they're both so sick they can't fight, what's the point of having a Digimon?" he said. "Do you think they have Digimon doctors?" 

"Doctormon," said Savannah, and laughed. "We could try looking." 

"That's another thing," said Zach, shifting his backpack. "Every time we enter the Digital World, we enter at the same point. So we could travel as far as we'd like, but if we leave we have to come back to the starting point. Which makes the whole thing pointless." 

"We'd have to stay there and not leave," said Savannah. "Like I said, if we could spend the weekend..." 

They managed it in the end. They told their parents they would be at each other's houses all weekend, and Zach secretly collected his old camping gear from the garage and stashed it in his room. It seemed so impossibly easy that Zach was certain something would go wrong, but so far nothing had happened. 

Spikemon was quite ill, but he dragged himself out of Zach's bed and sniffed at the sleeping bags, rolled up tent, and box of assorted campfire cookware. "What's this for, Zach?" 

"We're gonna stay in the Digital World all weekend," said Zach in a low voice, so his mother wouldn't overhear. "We're going to find a doctor for you and Hissmon." 

"Oh," said Spikemon, his eyes lighting. "There's doctors in Gigaterra. It's a three day walk from Digiforum, but a Railmon track runs near there." 

"What, like a train?" 

"Like a Railmon. But they're hard to catch." 

Savannah arrived at Zach's window a little after seven that evening. He opened the window and helped her climb in, for she was lugging a full backpack, and had Hissmon looped around her neck. 

"You got the food?" he asked as she sat on his bed, puffing. 

"Yeah," she said. "I cleaned out the pantry." She looked at his camping gear. "Can you carry that?" 

"Sure." Zach loaded the cookware into his backpack, and stuffed the sleeping bags in the top. Then he heaved his fifteen-pound burden onto his back and pulled out his digivice. 

Spikemon emerged from under the bed with Zach's baseball bat in his teeth. He held it as the portal opened. The bat had reverted to its original inanimate state upon returning to the real world, which Zach had been happy about, but Spikemon thought it was a shame. 

"Digiport open," said Zach. 

A few minutes later Zach, Savannah, their digimon and their gear were in the Digital World, surrounded by tranquil blue evening. Added to their party was Base, for the baseball bat had reawakened upon his conversion to data. 

"Digiforum first," said Zach, drawing a deep breath of the fresh air. 

"Sure, right, good idea," said Base. "And stop chewing on my handle, lizardface!" 

Spikemon dropped Base in the grass. "I wasn't chewing on your--" 

"I know what chewing feels like," said the bat, his beady eyes indignant. "That was chewing." 

"Shut up," said Zach. He picked up the bat and shoved him into his backpack, 'head' first. Base's protests were muffled by the sleeping bags. 

The group set out toward Digiforum, traveling slowly to allow Spikemon to keep up. Savannah glanced at the baseball bat protruding from Zach's pack. "You don't think he'll smother?" 

"He's just a baseball bat," said Zach with a shrug. But he reached back and pulled Base out of confinement. 

The bat gasped. "I couldn't breathe! Gah! When was the last time that stuff was washed?" 

Zach carefully turned him around and stuck him back in his pack, this time with his tiny face showing. 

"Wait a minute, I'm upside down," exclaimed Base. "I can't ride like this! I'll get motion sickness!" 

"I need my hands free," said Zach. "And if I put you in right side up, you can't breathe." 

"So you'd rather I puke all over your neck," retorted the bat. "Hey, that's fine with me. I can't complain. I like it up here." 

"Shut up!" chorused Savannah, Zach, Spikemon and Hissmon. 

"Sorry I told you to take him out," muttered Savannah. 

"Me too," said Zach, glancing back at Spikemon. "I wonder if we can get a cart or something for Spikemon in Digiforum." 

"Maybe, if it hasn't all burned down." Savannah fell silent until they reached the hilltop above Digiforum. It was no longer burning, but a smoky smell hung in the hair, and a few gloomy torches illuminated the blackened walls. 

"Zach, what if our families find out we're gone?" said Savannah as they walked down the hill. 

Zach shrugged, unwilling to think about it. "We'll go back Sunday night. It's not like we'll be gone all week or something." 

The digimon in Digiforum were ash-stained, weary, and suspicious of the humans. 

"Go away," said Geckomon. "If not for you, everything wouldn't have burned down. Go away before someone takes your data!" 

The digidestined found themselves shut out of the town with the gates barred in their faces. 

"Some thanks!" spat Zach. "We saved their worthless butts, and they blame us for the fires!" He stalked off around the side of the town. Savannah shook her head and waited for him. Spikemon stayed with her, too weary and sick to follow Zach. 

Hissmon's head lifted on his sinuous neck, and wove out into the air, tongue flickering. "What's that?" he whispered. "Do you smell that?" 

Savannah sniffed, but her human nose was weaker than Hissmon's tongue. 

Spikemon sniffed, too. "Yeah, something's out here," he said with disinterest. "Rookie, whatever it is." 

"A rookie out alone at night?" said Hissmon, weaving back and forth. "I don't like it." He continued to taste the air. As he did, Savannah thought she saw movement near the trees fifty feet away. She gazed at the spot, but saw nothing else. 

A soft rumble drew their attention back to the town's walls, and they saw Zach returning, pushing a wheelbarrow in front of him. "Look what I found," he called. "It was out on a trash heap because one handle's broken." The wheelbarrow was made of a green plastic-like substance, and one handle was broken in two. But it would do. 

Zach lifted Spikemon into the barrow, and he and Savannah deposited their packs in it. Then they pushed it out into the field behind Digiforum, Hissmon still hanging from Savannah's shoulders, his tongue flicking in and out. 

* * * 

They made camp against the eaves of the forest to the north of Digiforum. When Zach cursed himself for forgetting to pack matches, Spikemon took careful aim at their pile of sticks and unleashed a Spark Blast attack. The fire caught at once. 

Zach made a bed for Spikemon in the wheelbarrow, for the little dinosaur had taken a fancy to this new vehicle. Zach unrolled his sleeping bag nearby, and stared as Savannah lay down with Hissmon coiled under her head as a pillow. "You're going to sleep with a snake?" 

"I resent that," said Hissmon. 

"He says he's keeping watch," said Savannah. "He thinks something's following us." 

Spikemon lifted his head, and vowed to himself that he would keep watch, too. 

Zach shook his head and lay down, too tired to care. He watched the digital stars for a while, and dozed off listening to the breathing of his four companions. 

Morning came, slow and quiet. Zach was awakened by the call of a strange bird. He opened his eyes and saw a creature like a blue cat with wings glide over their camp and land far out in the field. After a moment its mate flew out to it. Watching this, Zach was sharply reminded that he was in a strange world, and knew nothing about it. 

Savannah was asleep with her head pillowed on Hissmon's coils. Zach could hear twin snores rising from Spikemon and Base in the wheelbarrow, and smirked. So much for anyone keeping a lookout. He sat up and stretched. His internal clock told him it was 5:26 AM. He had not awakened so early in years. 

He pulled on his shoes and took a walk along the forest rim. Birds were singing, some familiar and some alien. Zach felt a thrill; two whole days of excitement stretched before them. 

As he walked back to camp, he remembered Spikemon's digivolution, and the data stick that had appeared in the nick of time. He recalled putting it in his pocket. He slapped his pockets, remembered he was wearing a different pair of pants, and then discovered the stick in his pocket after all. Maybe it appeared on his person only while he was in the Digital World. He pulled it out and examined it. 

It was a millimeter thick, three inches long, and made of white plastic. Engraved on the top was an abstract emblem that could have been a tongue of flame, and it was the same shade of red as his digivice. 

Zach pulled out his digivice from around his neck, and looked at the two input slots. "I wonder what the second one does," he thought. As he slipped the stick back in his pocket, he was struck again by his vast ignorance of the Digital World. 

He sat down on his sleeping bag and cycled through the menus on his digivice, looking for a map function. He didn't find one, but ran across a submenu that allowed for Digital World downloads. He opened it, and watched as his digivice made a remote connection to the Digital World matrix, and requested today's available downloads. Zach grinned. Available downloads were News, Weather, Games, and Modify Patches. 

Under Weather he found a radar map with Digiforum marked by a small black dot. There were a few other black dots: Gigaterra, Chipset, Rom, and Vinegarden. There was even a piece of land visible off the coast called File Island. He also noted that the weather forecast called for sun and light wind today and tomorrow. A paragraph at the bottom informed him that Digital World weather was based on a fractal chaos model and was 50% predictable 50% of the time. 

He looked up as Spikemon yawned. "Hi," whispered the dinosaur, blinking. 

"Morning," whispered Zach. "Want breakfast?" 

"Heck yeah." Spikemon stood up in the wheelbarrow and handed Zach Savannah's food-stuffed backpack. His bitten forearm was curled and stiff, but he seemed better than he had the previous day. 

Savannah awoke as Zach was warming a foil-wrapped package of leftovers over the fire. She pushed aside the sleeping Hissmon and sat up, rubbing her eyes. "You're making meatloaf for breakfast?" 

"Why not?" said Zach. "You ought to check out your digivice downloads, they rock." 

Savannah first retreated behind a bush to dress herself, then brushed her hair with one hand while she examined her digivice with the other. Zach served her breakfast, and she ate it without noticing. "Zach, listen to this! 'Hydramon has taken credit for the latest attacks on Binary Plateau. These attacks left 30 deleted and 50 damaged. There is a demand for vaccines in adjoining areas.'" 

Spikemon looked out of the wheelbarrow. "Cool! I could help!" 

"Me too," Base chimed in. "I'm a sport-type, right? I could cheer up the survivors by holding baseball games!" 

"Dream on," said Hissmon, who was basking in the heat from the campfire. "They want warriors, not entertainment." 

"Entertainment is good," said Base. 

"So they're having a war?" said Zach, chewing. "Bummer." 

"More like an Ultimate got too big for his britches," said Spikemon. "Say, that stuff smells good, gimme some." 

"You mean this kind of stuff happens?" Savannah asked in outrage. "Big digimon just attack towns and kill people for fun?" 

"There's usually a reason," said Hissmon, lifting his scaly head off the grass. "Maybe he wanted their data. Or he wanted to test his power. Or he wanted slaves." 

"How would you know?" snapped Spikemon. "I'll bet you virus-types think about it all the time." 

"Knock it off," said Zach, handing Spikemon a plate of warmed-over meatloaf. 

"Food!" said Spikemon, and ate everything in four bites. 

Savannah fed Hissmon and asked Base if he wanted anything, but the baseball bat had no stomach and could not eat. "Besides, you're just a weapon-type," said Zach, scanning the baseball bat with his digivice. "Technically you're not supposed to be able to talk." 

"But I'm from the real world, so I'm the exception to every rule," said Base smugly. 

They broke camp shortly afterward and traveled on, Zach pushing the wheelbarrow, and Savannah absorbed in digivice newscasts. The sun climbed above the trees to their left, throwing long bands of light across the meadow. If he hadn't been worried about Spikemon, Zach would have been perfectly happy. 

Following Spikemon's instructions, they found a trail through the trees eastwards. "After a mile or so is a Railmon station," said the green dinosaur, lying in the wheelbarrow like a king in a litter. "Hopefully one will pick us up." 

"You mean you have to talk them into it?" said Zach. He imagined a sort of long-legged creature pulling a cart along train rails, and only stopping when someone flagged it down. 

Spikemon nodded. "We'll have to buy tickets, but yeah." 

The land became rolling, and the trail wandered over wooded hills, never quite straight. 

"Who made this path?" said Savannah, tiring of Digital World News and noticing her surroundings. 

"The trees, of course," said Hissmon. "All roadmaking is managed by the tree-types. If they didn't see to the roads, there would be no passing through." 

Savannah saw Zach was tiring and offered to push the wheelbarrow. He gave it up in relief. He was developing a headache, probably from forgetting to bring his medication. 

As they walked, the birdsong around them slowly fell silent. Zach paid no attention, but Savannah peered up at the trees. "Zach, listen. It's so quiet." 

Zach looked around. "Maybe they don't like humans." 

Hissmon and Spikemon sniffed, heads turning. "I don't smell any digimon," muttered Spikemon. 

After a moment, Hissmon agreed, "Me neither." 

"How odd," said Savannah. 

Suddenly a new sound echoed through the quiet woods; the unmistakable shriek of a train whistle. "Hurry, we're gonna miss it!" exclaimed Spikemon. Zach resumed pushing the wheelbarrow, and they sprinted up the path. 

Two bends later they came to a wooden platform beside a single rail that stretched into the east and west. Chugging up to the platform was a great hairy engine, puffing steam from bulldog-like jaws. Where a headlight should have been was a pair of yellow eyes, which rolled at them as they pounded up the platform steps. 

The engine-digimon was towing three passenger cars. As he stopped, the doors opened and a small group of Geckomon disembarked, carrying packages of food for their friends in Digiforum. They eyed the Digidestined suspiciously and swarmed away down the trail, muttering and honking the horns around their necks. 

"We need tickets to get on," said Spikemon. He placed eight gold coins in Zach's hand and pointed to a ticket booth on a corner of the platform. Zach walked up and deposited the coins in a slot, and four tickets appeared through a hole in the window, although he could see no one inside. 

"Well? Get on!" thundered the Railmon. Startled, Savannah stepped into the first car and helped Zach lift the wheelbarrow inside. They didn't know what to expect from the inside of a living train, but the passenger cars had ordinary leather seats and glass windows. 

They had scarcely sat down when their tickets dissolved in their hands, the doors slapped shut, and Railmon leaped out of the station. Savannah and Zach gripped the sides of their seats as the train accelerated. Spikemon, unperturbed by their speed, climbed out of the wheelbarrow and sprawled across two seats. Across from him, Hissmon lifted his rope-like neck to look out the window. Noticing the humans' discomfort, he said, "There's handgrips on the ceiling." 

There were leather straps fastened above their heads, and Zach and Savannah grabbed them. 

"What's the matter, never rode a train before?" asked Spikemon, amused. 

"Not really," said Zach, watching the trees fly by his window. "Just airplanes." 

"Oh, we have some Jetmon," said Spikemon. "I've never rode one before, though. They're Mega-level robot-type, and they don't like passengers." 

* * * 

Behind them, looming above the trees like a monstrous statue, sat Condormon, his weight cracking the branch beneath him. He watched as the train vanished from sight, then beat his wings and soared into the blue sky. As he departed, birds burst into fresh song in the forest. 

On the ground, a rookie-level digimon watched Condormon's flight through narrowed eyes. Then he set off at a lope along the track, following the train. 


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 

_Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.  
- Hippocrates_

Railmon made a brief stop at a town called Rom, where two digimon boarded. One, a metal-plated star with eyes, took a seat at the far end of the coach, but the other, a three-foot tall rooster, sat down near the Digidestined. "Hi," he said, his red eyes taking in the wheelbarrow, and the half-sick Hissmon and Spikemon. "You folks in some kind of trouble?" 

"A vacation," said Zach. 

The rooster looked him up and down. "Well, they say never to question a human. We're bound to Gigaterra." 

"So're we," said Zach, who saw no reason for caution, despite Spikemon's worried glances. "Is it a good place for sight-seeing?" 

Kokatorimon launched into a description of the landmarks, historical monuments, and tourist attractions in Gigaterra. As Zach listened, Hissmon slithered to Savannah and whispered in her ear. "Kokatorimon is a champion level. He could be quite dangerous if angered." Savannah gave Hissmon a worried look. 

But Kokatorimon acted friendly enough, and entertained them with amusing stories from Kokatorimon's hometown of Silicon City. Some of his stories would have been funnier had they been familiar with the digimon he was talking about, but they laughed anyway. 

Before they knew it Railmon was bellowing, "Gigaterra! Gigaterra, next stop!" 

They Digidestined piled their things into the wheelbarrow again, and Kokatorimon shook Starmon, who had dozed off in the far end of the car. The train rattled to a halt, and a bustling platform appeared outside the windows. There were several dozen passengers waiting to board, and a crowd of curious eyes stared at the Digidestined as they disembarked. Zach was aware of how odd he looked with a broken wheelbarrow full of camping gear, a dinosaur, and a baseball bat, and ducked his head in embarrassment as they pushed through the crowd. Savannah followed in his wake, and Spikemon lay regally in his barrow, gazing down his nose at the other digimon. 

"Humans!" someone said, and the platform broke into excited muttering. 

Beyond the platform and station lay a bustling city of spherical buildings like great white eggs. Streets of orange pavement laced between them, and digimon of all shapes and sizes hurried by in two directions. Bewildered, Zach stood on the sidewalk and looked around. "Do they have cars here?" he called to Spikemon above the hubbub of the street. 

"Yeah," said Spikemon, waving a paw. A giant turtle was passing by with a row of seats built across its back, smaller digimon just visible inside. It was fast for a turtle, and was gone within seconds. 

"Flag down the next one," said Savannah. 

Zach tried, but the next turtle took no notice of his timid wave. Savannah pushed in front of him. "Here, let me." She stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled. 

The turtle kept going, but a little yellow cart zipped to the curb. It looked like a shopping cart, and seated in the bottom were four brown birds with two legs and bird skulls clamped over their heads like helmets. "Kiwimon Karts at your service," said one. "You whistled?" 

"Can you take us to a digimon doctor?" asked Savannah. 

"Sure," said the Kiwimon. "How can you pay?" 

Savannah and Zach exchanged glances. They had no digimon money. "Got any more of those coins?" Zach whispered to Spikemon. 

"No," said the dinosaur. "I used all I had for tickets." 

Hissmon unfolded a few feet of himself from Savannah's neck. "Would you take this fine wheelbarrow as payment?" he said in his oiliest voice. 

At once all four Kiwimon left their cart and examined the wheelbarrow. They muttered and chirped to themselves for a moment, then announced, "We'll take it." 

They swarmed back to their cart as Zach and Savannah threw their gear into the cart's basket, which expanded inch by inch the more it contained. By the time Zach and Savannah climbed in with their partners, the cart was the size of a small car. "How does it do that?" Zach asked the helmeted birds below the basket. 

"Data compression," replied a Kiwimon. 

Without warning the cart zipped away into the traffic, weaving in and out of the feet of bigger digimon. Zach and Savannah clung to the cart, but Spikemon, Base and Hissmon whooped and hollered. Zach tried to look at each creature they passed, but after a few minutes his senses were overwhelmed by claws, shaggy fur, robotic limbs, and glinting, intelligent eyes. 

They whipped around a corner and entered a walled courtyard at the foot of one of the egg-shaped skyscrapers. As the humans and digimon climbed out, Base remarked, "Let's do that again sometime." 

"Thank you for choosing Kiwimon Karts for all your transportation needs," squawked one of the birds, and the cart skidded out of the courtyard on two wheels. 

"This must be the waiting room," said Savannah, looking around. Benches of various heights lined the courtyard walls, and in the wall of the building was a door, and a window with a sign that said 'appointments'. There was only one other digimon in the courtyard, a burly man-like lion with black trousers and a shaggy mane that spilled over his chest and back. He stared at them with stolid indifference, and they took seats as far from him as possible. 

"You want to make the appointment, or should I?" Zach murmured to Savannah. 

"I will," she said, and walked to the appointment window, leaving Hissmon beside Zach. The snake bunched up his injured coils, and Zach saw the gashes in his scaled back. The sober knowledge that their partners were hurt returned to him. He rubbed Spikemon's head, and glanced at Base, who had gone to sleep on top of the backpacks. 

Savannah returned, looking cheerful. "The doctor will see us in half an hour." She lowered her voice. "Did you scan Leomon over there?" 

"No." Zach pulled out his digivice and scanned the hairy beast. Leomon, champion level, 96% injured. Zach squinted across the courtyard. "Good grief. What's the matter with him?" 

Savannah and Zach, along with their digimon, gazed at Leomon in curious silence. Leomon stared at the wall, ignoring them. Aside from a tear in his trousers, they could see nothing wrong with him. 

"Go ask him," said Savannah. 

"Drop dead," said Zach, looking down as Leomon turned and met his eyes. "He might attack us." 

"At ninety-six percent injury? I don't think so," said Savannah. "I'll go ask him, then." 

She left their bench and approached the lion, which watched her but did not move. "Hello sir," she said. "We were wondering--" 

Leomon lifted one arm and revealed a huge gash down his side, oozing blood that evaporated into data fragments. "I know you scanned me," he said in a voice as deep as a bass drum. "Was that all, little girl?" 

Looking amazed at her own bravery, Savannah said, "Yes, thank you," and returned to Zach. "He's injured all right. I wonder what happened?" 

"Why don't you go ask him, little girl?" said Zach sarcastically. Savannah mock-punched him. 

At that moment the inner door opened, and a thing like a bulb with a flower on its head hopped out, looking happy. Behind it, the interior room shone with light, and a voice called, "Leomon?" The Digidestined watched as Leomon stood and limped slowly inside. The door closed behind him. 

"What did the doctor look like?" Savannah asked. 

"Don't know," said Spikemon, and, "Didn't see," said Hissmon. 

Spikemon added, "But it'll be an extremely powerful digimon to heal another. Healing powers weren't part of the original matrix." 

Hissmon looked at Spikemon. "Yes they were. It just took time to work up to that level." 

"No they weren't," argued Spikemon, propping himself up on his forearms. "That's why the Programmer had to come and update the Digital World to 1.5." 

"Psshaw," spat Hissmon, forgetting his injuries and raising himself above Spikemon's eye level. He had to sink down again, hissing in pain. "We digimon were responsible for the reprogramming of the Digital World. No mythical Programmer exists." 

"Oh yeah?" snarled Spikemon, starting to rise, but Zach pushed him back down. 

"Cool it, hothead. What's this stuff about a Programmer?" 

"It's a theological debate," said Hissmon before Spikemon could speak. "Some think that the Digital World was coded by a Programmer, while the more intellectual school of thought has it that the Digital World was formed by us Digimon, each of our battles contributing to the on-going formation of the world--" 

"That's Nuumon sludge," spat Spikemon. "There is too a Programmer, and someday soon he's going to update us to 2.0, and all you viruses will be deleted." 

The two fell to arguing the finer points of their beliefs, quickly losing their partners. It seemed that there were only two religions in the Digital World, and members of both always argued fiercely with each other. Zach found it embarrassing, but Savannah listened closely and asked questions. 

Before they knew it, Leomon emerged from the bright room, his wound gone, and the voice from within called for Spikemon and Hissmon. "Sorry to interrupt you," said Zach, "but it's our turn." He and Savannah picked up their partners and carried them inside. 

The two froze in the doorway and stared, mouths hanging open. Standing in the center of the room and seeming to fill it with his six wings was a ten-foot angel. He was robed in royal purple and wore a tall helmet that masked his eyes. His entire body radiated power, and it was terrifying to stand so close. 

He motioned for the Digidestined to set their gaping digimon on the floor, then held both hands over Hissmon, who cowered under the glowing hands, trembling. "Magna Touch," the angel breathed. Bits of data flowed out of a gray block of raw data in the corner, and within minutes the snake was healed. Hissmon collapsed in relief as Magna Angemon turned his attention to Spikemon.

Spikemon was awed, but did not cower. Magna Angemon held his hands over the green dinosaur and frowned. "You have been poisoned. It will take longer to heal you." 

"Okay, do it," said Zach as the great digimon looked at him. Zach found it easier to breathe when Magna Angemon was not looking at him. He was also glad the digimon's eyes were masked; he had a feeling that meeting the gaze of a six-winged angel would incinerate him. 

* * *

Outside in the empty courtyard, Base dozed in the sun on top of Zach's backpack. Having no limbs, there was little else he could do. However, he opened his eyes when he heard the slap of feet on the pavement. Standing in the courtyard entrance on two legs was an odd-looking lizard. He was orange with enormous green eyes, and his long tail was curled into a neat roll behind him. He clasped and unclasped his long fingers as he peered about, then scurried to the bench where the gear lay, crouching as if afraid of being seen. He eyed Base for a second, then snatched up the bat. "Hey!" Base began, but the lizard curled his hand around Base's mouth. "Shh," said the lizard, and whisked out of the courtyard. 

Base was in a frenzy of indignation by the time his kidnapper took refuge inside a dark restaurant. The lizard carried him to a table in the darkest corner, and there changed the color of his skin to mimic the chair and wallpaper. He uncovered the bat's mouth, and Base shrieked, "Help me, I've been stolen!" 

The lizard covered his mouth again and whispered savagely, "Keep quiet! I'll give you back to them once I'm done with you." 

He uncovered the bat's mouth, and this time Base did not yell. "Why'd you take me?" 

"I don't have any attacks," whispered the chameleon. "I'm defenseless and you're a weapon." 

Base sneered. "How come you don't have any attacks?" 

The lizard peered around the restaurant without answering. It was empty at that hour, with a single egg-like Digitamamon behind the counter. The lizard looked back at Base. "I'm Chamelemon. And you're Basemon?" 

"Just Base," said the bat. "So when will you give me back to Zach?" 

Chamelemon didn't reply. His scales shading back to orange, he slid out of his chair and ran lightly to the door. "The museum," he breathed to himself as he hesitated on the sidewalk. He slipped into the street traffic and vanished. 


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 

_As for pictures and museums, that don't trouble me. The worst of going abroad is that you've always got to look at things of that sort. To have to do it at home would be beyond a joke.   
Margaret Oliphant _

Ten minutes later, Zach, Savannah and their digimon walked up the street, scanning the signs on the buildings for a place to eat lunch. "I can't believe someone would steal Base," Zach was fuming. "He's just a baseball bat! Why would someone take him?" 

Savannah muttered something that sounded like, "Good riddance," then added aloud, "Let's try this place." She pointed at the restaurant sign, which said 'Digitavernmon'. "That's cute." 

"You've never seen a Digitamamon," muttered Spikemon, who was healed of his snakebites, but missed his wheelbarrow. 

Lunch was uneventful, except for a dispute with Digitamamon about prices. Afterward, as they stepped back into the sunlit street, Zach said, "It's one-thirty. What should we do now?" 

"The museum's about a block from here," said Hissmon, who was slithering along on his own steam. "It has lots of interesting digital artifacts. It also has the world's only known existing digivice." 

"Wow, let's go, then," said Savannah, smoothing her black hair. "Zach, do I look okay?" 

"You look fine, do we have to go to a museum?" said Zach without looking at her hair. 

"This won't be like a human museum," said Savannah, waving a hand. "You'll like it." 

The Gigaterra Museum was a marble building with pillars lining the front, and garage-sized doors that opened into a lobby as big as a cathedral. A statue of a solemn-looking Centaurumon stood opposite the doors. The museum had been dedicated to his memory, said a plaque on the base. 

Zach had to admit that the museum was interesting. He had only visited them during field trips, and only remembered his sore feet. But with Savannah and their partners, the experience was radically different. Savannah dashed from one exhibit to another, exclaiming over the display cards, and calling her findings to Zach if he lagged. They saw fossilized remains of ancient digimon, preserved remains of data bits as big as a human head, a tusk from the biggest Mammothmon ever born (twenty feet long), a Black Gear (broken), a Black Spiral (also broken), and many other odd artifacts. Last of all, occupying a room by itself, was the only known digivice remaining in the Digital World. 

There was a lengthy fact sheet detailing its history. As Zach examined the digivice itself (violet, and more square-shaped than his own), Savannah read the sheet out loud. The device had belonged to a boy named Joshua Cunningham, who had been killed when his partner failed to protect him. His partner had been devastated, and donated the surviving digivice to the museum. 

"I didn't know we could die here," said Savannah in a hushed voice, gazing at the abandoned digivice. "Hissmon, you'd better protect me." 

"Ditto," said Zach, looking around for his partner. "Hey, where'd Spikemon go?" The green dinosaur had vanished. 

Savannah continued studying the card, and Zach left the room in search of Spikemon. He found the dinosaur a few feet up the corridor, head low and tail stiff. "Spikemon?" Zach began, but Spikemon interrupted him with a savage growl. 

"A virus-type." 

"Where?" Zach said, not so alarmed as curious. He rested a hand on Spikemon's back, and felt the muscles as taut as wire. 

"Outside," said Spikemon, head turning as he tracked the enemy digimon's progress. "He's headed for the door." 

There was a boom that shook the marble walls, and the front doors burst open. A thing like a moving mountain stooped and stepped through. Vaguely man-shaped, it was a collection of boulders held together by an invisible force. The topmost rock had two red chips for eyes, and these swiveled about before settling on Zach and Spikemon. 

Zach felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. He backed away, never taking his eyes from the rock monster. Spikemon stood his ground, a tiny green shape between the rows of exhibits, facing down the intruder. 

The monster moved forward, every step rattling the building to its foundations. Behind it, the digimon who worked in the museum scurried for cover or phones, moving in desperate silence. The monster ignored them. Its attention was fixed on Zach and Spikemon. 

Or the doorway behind them. 

Zach bumped into the wall, still staring. Savannah was distracted from her reading and looked out of the display room. "Zach, what is--oh my gosh." She stared for a fraction of a second, then said, "Run!" She grabbed his arm and hurried him behind a staircase, groping for her digivice with her free hand. 

Spikemon had not moved, and now Hissmon was in the doorway of the digivice room, tongue flickering inquisitively. "Oh dear, not another battle," he remarked. 

"Terramon, champion level," panted Savannah. "Make Spikemon digivolve with your stick!" 

"Oh yeah," said Zach, fumbling out his digivice. His hands shook so much he could hardly slide his data stick into its slot. "Spikemon digivolve to Carnomon," he read, then peered toward his partner. 

Spikemon's body was encircled in a sphere of light for a second, and when it vanished, he had transformed into a green tyrannosaur-like creature with long metal horns above each eye. He didn't attack, but bared his teeth and blocked Terramon's progress. 

"He's a carnotarus," exclaimed Zach, as it was the first time he had seen Carnomon by daylight. "Sort of." Carnomon also wore an armor vest, and his arms and legs were banded with bronze. 

His appearance had no effect on Terramon, who lifted a heavy limb and made as though to brush Carnomon out of the way. The green dinosaur backed away, teeth still bared. "Zach," he rumbled, "my fire-attacks aren't going to hurt him." 

"So go for contact!" Savannah called, before Zach could respond. "Ram him!" 

Carnomon obediently lowered his head and charged into Terramon's midsection. There was a clang of steel on rock, but Terramon kept moving, shoving Carnomon ahead of him. "This isn't working!" said Carnomon through his teeth, his claws screeching along the smooth floor. 

"Don't command him, he's MY digimon1" said Zach, glaring at Savannah. "Worry about your own digimon. Carnomon, get out of the way!" 

The walking hunk of rock had reached the doorway leading to the room with the digivice, and for a moment Carnomon was pinned between Terramon and the wall. He gave a strangled cry, and then the wall gave way. Mortar and dust crashed to the floor, filling the hall with white fog. 

Zach ran for the hole in the wall and found Carnomon lying on the floor, the breath crushed from his lungs, gagging and gasping. Terramon was oblivious to his attacker, and grasped the display case with the old digivice in it. It tore free of the floor, and Terramon turned to leave the way he had come. 

"Carnomon, get out of the way!" Zach exclaimed, seizing his digimon's steel horns and trying to drag him by his head. 

The green dinosaur heaved himself to one side and struggled to rise as their foe stalked past, lugging the display case. 

"Zach!" Savannah cried. "Don't let him take that!" 

"So what do you want me to do, spit on him?" Zach yelled back. 

Carnomon gained his feet at last, his tongue hanging out. "Gotta stop him," he gasped, and stumbled out after Terramon. Zach followed, picking his way through the debris that littered the floor. 

Outside, Savannah nervously trailed Terramon, Hissmon slithering beside her. "I need one of those data sticks," she whispered. "Where do I get one?" 

"No idea, and it wouldn't help, anyway," said Hissmon. "My ability is venom-based, and I can't bite rocks." 

The Digidestined trailed Terramon as far as the entry hall before anything happened. 

As the moving mountain clunked toward the door, a lizard appeared in the doorway, clutching a baseball bat. 

"Hey!" said Zach. "He's got Base!" 

The little orange lizard darted forward, swarmed up Terramon's leg and onto his arm, and began smashing open the glass display case. "Woo! Yeah! Man! Rocking!" yelled the baseball bat with each blow. When the lizard had demolished the glass, Base said, "That was the most satisfying experience I've ever had." 

On the ground, Hissmon was peering at the orange lizard, rearing his long body up higher and higher. Suddenly his eyes flashed red and he snarled, "Snake-eye Hypnosis!" 

The lizard's head turned at the sound, and he froze where he was perched on Terramon's arm, paralyzed. In his hand, Base said, "What did you do, you slimy beast? Oh, hi Hissmon. I didn't recognize you." 

At the same time, Carnomon ran forward and butted Terramon from behind. 

The mass of rocks overbalanced and fell through the museum doors, dropping the display case, which crashed in ruin on the road outside. The frozen orange lizard bounced away like a plastic toy, coming to rest a short distance away, still holding Base. 

Before anyone could recover, a shadow fell over the street, and a great black bird dropped from the sky. It had a pink, naked head, and its body was criss-crossed with chains. As the digidestined looked on, the condor seized the old digivice in its hooked beak and leaped into the sky again. 

Traffic had come to a halt when Terramon fell into the road, and suddenly the area was swarming with a variety of digimon, all wearing bright red vests. Several of them pounced on Terramon and accused him of grand theft of a valuable digiartifact. As this was going on, a metal-clad robot called Andromon approached the Digidestined, and questioned them about what had happened. 

By the time the Digidestined had finished talking to him, Terramon had been taken away, traffic had resumed, and the museum digimon were cleaning up the rubble from the shattered wall. The orange lizard who had kidnapped Base was nowhere to be seen. 

Zach sat down on the museum steps. "Well, that was the most interesting museum visit I ever had." 

Savannah sat down beside him and pushed her hair out of her eyes. "No kidding." There was a moment of silence. Spikemon had devolved and now stood at Zach's elbow, watching the traffic. Hissmon crawled up to Savannah and rested his sleek head on her knee. She stroked him. "Why did you attack that little lizard?" 

"I didn't attack him," said the snake. "I just looked at him. He had Base, did you notice?" 

"You froze him," said Savannah. "How come?" 

Hissmon looked blank. "I did? I don't remember attacking anyone." 

"His eyes did turn red," said Zach. "Maybe he didn't have control over it." 

"My eyes turned red?" said Hissmon, troubled. "Oh my. Perhaps it was a side effect of my injuries." 

"Hate to interrupt you," said Spikemon, sounding bored, "but that Leomon guy we saw at the doctor is coming over here." 

They looked up and saw the burly lion in trousers stalking across the street toward them, oblivious to the traffic of digimon hurrying to and fro. Now that he was well, they all noticed the size of his muscles and the long knife strapped across his back. 

Zach and Savannah stood up, but Spikemon and Hissmon were unperturbed. "He's a vaccine-type," said Spikemon. "He's not gonna hurt us." 

Leomon stepped onto the sidewalk and stood looking down at them, arms folded. When he did not speak, Savannah ventured, "Hi." 

"Hello, little girl," rumbled Leomon. "Are you the ones who stood up to Terramon?" 

"Yes sir," said Zach, feeling a spurt of pride. Even this Leomon fellow had heard of their prowess! 

"You did a poor job," said Leomon. "You let him hand off the digivice to his partner." 

Zach felt as if cold water had been splashed in his face. He looked at Savannah, whose face mirrored his own. "But he was made of rock!" she said indignantly. "We couldn't hurt him!" 

"Did you try?" 

When neither of them answered, Leomon smiled grimly. "You need more practice. Anyway, I was sent to tell you that I'm going to Tusk Mountain. You're coming with me." 


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 

_Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.   
John Ruskin_

"Coming with you?" said Spikemon, cocking his head. "Why?" 

"You Digidestined are the ones who let Condormon take the digivice," said Leomon. "If someone like Hydramon gets his hands on it, it could lead to the premature reformat of the Digital World." 

Savannah glanced at Zach. "But we're only here for the weekend..." 

Leomon shrugged and turned away. Without knowing why, the Digidestined followed him. 

The tall lion took a bus back to the train station, the Digidestined in his wake, and boarded a westbound train. This Railmon was sleeker than the last one, and it too took off and roared along the track at eighty miles an hour, but this time Zach and Savannah were prepared. 

They sat in seats facing each other and clung to the leather handgrips on the ceiling. Spikemon and Hissmon peered out the window with interest, and Leomon sat across the aisle from them, taking up a whole seat. There were ten minutes of uncomfortable silence, which was broken by Savannah. "Why do you care about what Condormon does?" 

Leomon looked down at them. "I'm with Conduct Code Enforcement. We've had our eye on Tusk Mountain for some time, and we think that Condormon is working with a ring of viruses." 

"So you're a cop?" said Zach. 

Leomon nodded and looked out the window. 

"What does Conduct Code Enforcement do?" asked Savannah. 

"All digimon have a moral code built into them," said Leomon. "Everyone knows that murder and stealing are wrong, but some digimon choose to break their code." 

"So you enforce it," said Zach. "I wish humans had it that easy." His digital identity lacked such a code, although he knew that stealing and murder were wrong in his own world. 

"Humans don't have a moral code?" exclaimed Spikemon, staring. "That's it. I'm never going to the real world again." 

"It's not like that," said Zach. "We have laws and things that make them wrong. If you do them you get punished." 

"It's a mystery of free will," said Hissmon. "Everybody knows certain things are wrong. But they can act contrary to their coding." 

"But how do you know it's your coding?" said Savannah. "How do you know it's not just laws and culture that make certain things wrong?" 

This drew blank stares from the digimon. "You think murder is right?" growled Leomon. 

"No, I was just saying, there could be cultural differences in what we think is right and what somebody else thinks is right--" 

Leomon turned to face Savannah. "Morals do not shift and change, little girl. What is wrong in your world is wrong here. Condormon may believe he has the right to steal, but that does not justify his actions. If right and wrong were a matter of opinion, then we would not be having this conversation, for there would be no possibility that one of us were right. There is a moral code built into all worlds, and it is not a matter of opinion." 

Savannah opened her mouth and closed it again. Zach hid a smile and looked at the trees flying by his window. Leomon turned and gazed out his own, and the conversation was over. 

* * *

Tusk Mountain stood in the middle of a flat, treeless plain, and rose out of the ground like the tusk of a giant elephant. It was dark blue and looked as smooth as glass. 

The Railmon track passed within a mile of it, but the train itself was reluctant to stop. He obliged by slowing down a bit before ejecting them and their luggage from the train, and sped off into the distance as they picked themselves up. 

"Those Trainmon are so rude!" said Savannah, brushing herself off. "Are you okay?" 

"If okay means flat," grunted Zach, whose pack and partner had landed on him. 

Leomon had landed on his feet, cat-like, and was waiting for them at a little distance. When the Digidestined had themselves and their gear sorted out, they walked up to him. He pointed to the blue spike in the distance. "That's Tusk Mountain, and that's where we'll find Condormon." 

"It looks like a lighthouse," said Zach. "A really tall one." 

"Only without a light," said Spikemon. 

Leomon strode toward it, and the four hurried to keep up. 

* * *

"Tell me where they went!" 

Chamelemon smacked into a brick wall and reeled back. He landed on all fours and sat still, orange body trembling. When he did not reply, a green tendril wound around his neck and lifted him up. A pair of yellow eyes glared at him from within the shelter of three thick white petals. "I could throttle the life out of you," hissed the plant, and threw the choking lizard on the ground. Chamelemon lay still, gasping. 

"Where did the Digidestined go?" asked the plant again, its spiky leaves quivering with anger. 

Chamelemon's lips moved, but no sound came out. 

"What was that?" said the plant. 

"He said, 'Go to the Recycle Bin,' creep!" said a voice. 

The plant turned to see a baseball bat lying on the pavement where Chamelemon had dropped it. "What did you say?" said Stranglemon, picking up the bat in a long vine. 

"I said there are a pair of pruning shears with your name on them," said Base. "I said you're a weed. I said that your mother eats bonemeal. I said--" Stranglemon threw him at the wall. 

Base bounced off it and rolled to a halt near Chamelemon, who was a bruised, beaten heap. "Well Chamelemon, good buddy, I guess this is it," said Base. "I'd take him on if you'd try, but I guess you're too damaged. Now he'll make you snitch, and that'll be the end of Zach..." 

Chamelemon clutched Base's handle, then leaped up and slammed Stranglemon across the center of his flower-face. Stranglemon staggered to one side, but before he could recover, Chamelemon was running like the wind; out the courtyard, down the street, through a skyscraper lobby, onto the back of a transport turtle for three blocks, then between two buildings, and up a fire escape to a domed roof, ten stories above Gigaterra. 

He crouched there a long time, panting and watching for pursuit. Base watched, as well, but in all the swarming masses of digimon, Stranglemon had lost them. 

"Okay," said Base after a while. "How many people are after you, again?" 

"Not sure," said Chamelemon. "Thanks for that. I nearly told him." 

"Can't have you spilling your guts to any thug who asks," said the bat. "Are we going after them?" 

"Not yet," said Chamelemon. "I don't think Condormon is the head of the viral attack. Want to go to the Binary Plateau and see what Hydramon's up to?" 

"Isn't he the guy who just killed all those people?" 

"Yes, and I'd love to help destroy him. Imagine--I might get my attacks back!" 

Base raised one non-existent eyebrow. "Get them back?" 

"Got to go," said Chamelemon, and whisked down the fire escape without another word. 

* * *

As the Digidestined approached Tusk Mountain, they realized that it was bigger than it looked. Its base was more than a mile in diameter, and grass grew up to its foot. As they drew closer, they saw that it was not one smooth spike: it was a mass of square, stairstep edges like a salt crystal. Some ledges were wide enough to park a car upon, while others could have been stairs for mice. 

"It's like a big crystal," said Savannah, squinting as the afternoon sun glinted off the polished facets of the mountain. 

"Some say that this is where viral data goes when a virus-type dies," said Leomon. "It glows during thunderstorms. Condormon will be near the top." 

"Why not on the tip?" said Zach, shading his eyes. 

"Don't you know anything?" said Spikemon, incredulous. "The topmost peak isn't finished. It won't be added until the last virus has been deleted." He glared at Hissmon, who flicked his tongue and said nothing. 

Presently they reached the foot of the mountain itself, and Savannah touched it. "It feels like glass," she announced. 

Leomon nodded and stepped up on one of its ledges. Savannah followed him, but Zach stayed where he was. "You mean we just climb it? No ropes or anything?" 

"You got a rope?" said Spikemon, jumping up after the others. 

Zach glared after them. "This is stupid! How are we supposed to fight Condormon on a bunch of glass ledges?" 

"Leave your gear," called Leomon. "You can come back for it later." 

Zach dumped his pack in the grass. "Fine," he muttered. "It can be my grave marker." And he stepped onto Tusk Mountain. 

The climb was tricky, but not difficult. There were a dozen ways to climb, as every large ledge had smaller ledges growing out of them, and the smaller steps were formed by clumps of sloping crystalline angles. The digimon climbed like children on a playset, undaunted by the height of the mountain. The humans were less comfortable, and sweated in the sun. 

Zach looked down once and saw that they had already climbed fifty feet. After that he kept from looking down. He disliked heights, and disliked still more the thought that there was a large, fearsome bird at the top, waiting for them. Instead, he focused on the shape and texture of the mountain's side. Square angles ran everywhere, all of the same dark blue color. The higher they climbed, however, the more transparent the edges and corners became. He pointed this out to Savannah, who replied that she had noticed it, too. He couldn't see how, for she was climbing and reading her digivice's screen at the same time. 

Finally he said, "Put it away, Savannah. If you fall you'll get cut to pieces." 

"I'm downloading modify patches," she replied. "You should, too. They have a couple to do with flight and attack enhancements, and they might come in handy, seeing as I can't digivolve Hissmon." 

Zach sat on a ledge to rest, feeling its welcome coolness against his legs, and looked up Digital World downloads on his own digivice. Savannah was right--there were modify patches that had to do with flight and attacks, but they were large files and would take a while to download. He picked Birdramon Wings (Fire-type, Fly +9) and resumed climbing. 

The others had climbed about twenty feet above him while he had rested, and all but Spikemon were out of sight. Spikemon had hung back to keep an eye on his partner. "You okay?" he called. 

"Yeah," Zach called back. "Just working out plan B." 

The little green dinosaur waited until Zach reached him, then said softly, "Condormon isn't here." 

Zach frowned. "How do you know?" 

"No smell," said Spikemon, scrambling up on a ledge. "He stinks, if you haven't noticed. I ought to be able to smell him by now, and I can't." 

Zach glanced over his shoulder at the distant ground and quickly looked back at his digimon. "How close to the top are we?" 

"We're more than halfway." Spikemon looked toward the ground indifferently. "You think I could push Hissmon off and say it was an accident?" 

"No need to make this mountain any taller," said Zach, noticing a cut on his palm from the sharp crystal edges. "Besides, Savannah would kill you." 

There came a sharp hiss from above. Zach and Spikemon looked up and saw Savannah, Hissmon and Leomon all facing the same direction. Zach looked, too, and saw a black bird against the blue sky, gliding lazily toward the mountain. 

"Is that him?" said Zach. 

"Yes," came Leomon's voice from higher up. "Everyone find a wide ledge." 

Zach and Spikemon slid down a few feet to a ledge the size of a sidewalk, and Savannah found another ten feet to their left. "Don't use the stick yet," said Spikemon, noticing the digivice in Zach's hand. "Digivolving sends out an energy wave and he'll know." 

"I have a modify patch," said Zach. "Wings for you. How do I use them?" 

"Just hit 'apply' I guess," said Spikemon, watching their enemy's progress. "But they're only good for a few minutes and they only work once, so be careful." 

Then Condormon swept over them. They had a glimpse of a pink head, black, angry eyes, and a mass of dark feathers, and then he was gone, leaving a lingering smell of carrion. But he circled back, scouting out their positions. 

"Condormon!" roared Leomon. "You are to return with me to Gigaterra, where you will stand trial for theft and treason. Will you come peacefully?" 

The bird swooped at him and screeched, "Never!" There was a second of confusion on Leomon's ledge, and then Condormon swirled away with a deep cut across his naked neck. Leomon stood still on his ledge, his knife drawn, panting. 

Savannah yelled, "Try that over here, you lump of corrupt data!" Hissmon was coiled on a ledge to one side, waiting. Condormon swooped in with his feet extended to knock Savannah off the mountain, but she threw herself flat and Hissmon sprang off his ledge and sank his teeth into Condormon's face. He wrapped his long body around the bird's skinny neck as Condormon shrieked and wheeled off into the air. 

Savannah sat up, selected a modify patch called 'power boost: +4' and applied it. 

Coiled around Condormon's neck, Hissmon's strength suddenly quadrupled. He tightened his coils like a noose, shutting off Condormon's breath, and drove his fangs deeper into his enemy's skin. 

"Savannah, do something!" Zach yelled. "If he falls, it'll kill Hissmon!" 

Savannah ignored him, counting down seconds on her internal clock. "Three, two, one," she whispered, then selected her other modify patch, 'Demidevimon wings, fly +5.' 

Hissmon felt his extraordinary strength give out, and at the same time a pair of bat wings sprouted from his back. He extracted his fangs, uncoiled his body from Condormon's neck and threw himself into the air, his temporary wings beating. 

But Condormon was not beaten so easily. In midair he whirled about and screeched, "Condor Chain!" The chains looped about his body leaped from him, flew through the air and wrapped around Savannah, Hissmon, Zach and Spikemon, who were unprepared for a conventional attack. The chains flew at Leomon as well, but he beat them off before they could bind him. 

Hissmon dropped like a stone to the side of the mountain, where he lay stunned. Savannah, Zach and Spikemon struggled, but the chains were the thick industrial kind, and it was difficult to move. Condormon swooped at Savannah. "You helped him, you filthy little human!" His claws curled around her and flung her clear of the mountainside. 

Zach's finger was on his blue digivice button, and he knew the modify patch was selected, but there was no time to digivolve Spikemon. He hit Apply anyway. 

A pair of hot orange wings burst from Spikemon's back, melting the chains. They were too big for him, but Spikemon dove off the mountain anyway, hoping to reach Savannah before she hit the ground. 

He couldn't. The wings were for a champion-level digimon, and he was only a rookie. He could hardly lift the things, let alone fly where he wanted. He watched Savannah drop and roared in frustration as the wings faltered and carried him back toward Tusk Mountain against his will. 

Something red darted into his range of vision, and he looked down. Some red-winged thing was streaking after Savannah, wings half-folded. He thought he glimpsed a figure standing on the plain below before he smashed into the rocks. Damaged 10%. 

* * *

Savannah fainted after the first few seconds of her fall, and did not awaken until she had been plucked out of mid air and was stretched out on the grass. 

The first thing she was aware of was that her knowledge level had gone from 6 to 7. The next thing she knew was the feel of grass under her, and the soft breathing of some animal above her. She opened her eyes. 

Then she laughed out loud, which was the common reaction upon meeting Chargermon. Standing above her was a little donkey decked out in red medieval silks, with a pair of crimson wings folded to its sides. "Hello," said the donkey. "Are you all right?" 

"I guess," said Savannah, still grinning and sitting up. "Oh, hi." Standing beside the donkey was a girl with braids in her hair and a shy expression. "Hey," said Savannah, "have we met/" 

"Yes," said the girl. "I asked your friend if he still draws dinosaurs. I'm Tithonia." 

Savannah stood up. "Did you catch me?" 

"I did," said Chargermon. 

Savannah looked at Tithonia. "Thanks. I didn't know you were Digidestined." 

Tithonia only nodded, eyes on the grass. 

Zach, Leomon and Spikemon were descending the mountain, jumping from ledge to ledge like mountain goats. Zach was less sure-footed than the digimon, and proceeded on all fours, or by sliding on his backside. Behind them slithered Hissmon, pausing often to lift his head high and peer about for danger. 

"Savannah!" Zach yelled as he neared the ground. "You're alive!" 

"Duh!" she yelled back. "Tithonia and Chargermon saved me!" 

"Who?" Zach squinted toward them and kept descending. 

Leomon reached the ground first and bounded away behind Tusk Mountain like the great cat he was. Spikemon reached the ground next, checked to make sure Zach would make it, then trotted up to investigate the newcomers. As he and Chargermon sniffed noses, Tithonia said, "He looks just like your friend's drawing." 

"Hooray, another vaccine-type!" said Spikemon, not listening. "We need a flying one. Did you see Condormon throw Savannah off like she was nothing?" 

"Yes, I saw," said the donkey. "Introduce us to your partner." 

"Oh, right," said the dinosaur, as Zach walked up. "This is Zach, and I'm Spikemon." 

"Oh, and I'm Savannah," said Savannah. She looked around. "Where's Hissmon?" 

"Coming, coming," said a voice a little way off. They turned to see him slithering down the mountainside, winding sideways and hissing whenever he had to drop to a lower point. "That's my partner, Hissmon," said Savannah, pointing. 

"How do you do," said Tithonia, shaking Zach and Savannah's hands. "I'm Tithonia," she said to Zach. "Your partner looks just like your drawing." 

Spikemon cocked his head. "You've drawn pictures of me, Zach? I want to see!" 

"When we go home," said Zach, reddening. He shoved his hands in his pockets, and there was an awkward silence. "So, uh, where's Leomon got to?" Zach said, and walked off, Spikemon at his heels. Savannah and Tithonia followed. 

"How long have you had your digivice?" Savannah asked. 

Tithonia tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. "About two weeks. This is my second weekend." 

"Gosh," said Savannah, motioning for Hissmon to hurry up. "We've only had ours a few days. And your digimon can already digivolve." 

"We were attacked by a Tyrannomon," said Chargermon, laying her long ears back. "It was digivolve or die." 

Hissmon slithered up to Savannah's feet, his tongue flickering. "Hello," he said to Tithonia and Chargermon. 

Chargermon sniffed him, then shied away. "You're a virus-type!" 

Hissmon sighed. "Benign virus. Why is it such a big deal?" 

"He just took on Condormon," said Savannah. "He's all right." 

Tithonia gave Hissmon a hard look and said nothing. 

They rounded the base of Tusk Mountain and saw Leomon in the distance, standing over Condormon, who was spread out on the ground. The bird's data was on the verge of breaking apart, and at times they could see through him. "Good grief," muttered Savannah. "How much poison did you inject?" 

"Everything I had," said Hissmon. "My fangs will be dry for days." 

The lion knelt over the condor and spoke to it. The condor turned its head in reply, then drooped. His data broke apart and evaporated into thin air, and Leomon was standing alone in the grass. 

Zach, who was ahead of the girls, turned back. "Well, I guess that's that." 

"Too bad he died," said Spikemon, pouting. "I never got a lick at him." 

Zach glared at him. "You're so violent." 

Leomon walked toward them, tail twitching. When he reached them he looked up and his heavy brows were furrowed. "The digivice is gone," he said to them. "He handed it off to a superior before we arrived." 

"So we shouldn't have fought him?" said Zach. 

Leomon looked at him. "He was a virus. If he had not been exterminated, he would have destroyed more innocent digimon." He shrugged. "This is where I leave you. My business no longer lies along your path." Before anyone could say a word, he bounded away in the direction of the train tracks. 

The Digidestined watched him go, and Zach glanced at the setting sun. "Want to find a place to camp?" 


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10 

_Wait until it is night before saying that is has been a fine day.   
-French Proverb_

As blue night fell across the Digital World, a small reptilian figure slipped through the lighted door of a pub and settled itself in a rear booth. 

Chipset was a village that had grown up around a small regeneration node. The land around it was lush and swampy, so most of the inhabitants were insect-types. They welcomed all visitors and viewed viruses as a food source, so rogue digimon avoided the area. 

Chamelemon had taken a train from Gigaterra and walked the rest of the way. He was afraid a virus was following him, and so decided to spend the night in Chipset. He had to show himself to a hungry green Snimon guard before entering, which both frightened and reassured him. A virus would be crazy to try to get in. 

He placed his order with a Kunemon, then laid Base on the table. "Interesting digs," said the baseball bat. "Don't look in the corner. The Roachmon are eating something nasty." 

Chamelemon looked. "Sheesh, some people. Do you eat?" 

"Nope, more's the pity," said Base. "No stomach. I'll watch your back, though." 

"Thanks." Chamelemon folded his skinny fingers and studied them with one eye, while the other swiveled around the room. 

Presently the caterpillar Kunemon returned, carrying a tray of meal-worms. It came with a complementary cookie, which Chamelemon set aside for dessert. He ate a few of his worms, but found he had no appetite. He poked the rest around his plate like a small child with vegetables. 

"What's the matter?" said Base. "Too much sauce?" 

"I don't feel good," said the lizard. He picked up a worm, looked at it, and set it down again. "Something's wrong." 

"No offense, but it's probably your diet," said Base. "If I ate worms that big, I'd be sick, too." 

"No, it's not that," said Chamelemon. "There's something important I've forgotten to do." He heaved a sign, picked up his cookie and put it down. 

"Does it have anything to do with losing your attacks?" 

Chamelemon fixed one eye on Base. "How many times are you going to ask me about that?" 

"As many as it takes," said the bat, grinning. 

Chamelemon shook his head. "They're just gone. I don't know how. It's like ... it's like I've been disconnected from the mainframe." For a second his skin turned the sickly yellow of fear. 

"Tough luck, pal," said Base. "Maybe you're getting sick. You're off color." 

Chamelemon smirked and ate his cookie. Then he sat for a while as his meal grew cold, watching the insect-digimon move in and out of the pub. None of them appeared agitated. If there had been a digimon following him, it must have backed off. 

He rose from his table, tossed a zip coin on the plate, picked up Base and walked outside. As he did, his stomach twisted and he doubled over. He staggered and leaned against the wall of the pub in the starlight, panting. He was outside, unattached, purposeless. "I'm going to die," he thought in panic. "My data must be corrupt!" 

"Dude, you okay?" said Base. "Your hand is shaking." 

"Fine," said the lizard. His stomach cramp passed, but the feeling of disconnection persisted. He rested there, then made himself get up and go to the barn that sheltered transient digimon. He curled up on a heap of straw in a corner with Base beside him, and worried himself to sleep. 

* * *

"We shouldn't stay here," said Tithonia. 

The Digidestined were camped in the lee of Tusk Mountain, and Zach had lit a fire. He and Savannah were roasting hot dogs on sticks while Spikemon and Hissmon watched the sizzling meat, entranced. Tithonia had brought a single blanket and three cheese sandwiches, one of which she was eating, eyes averted from the hot dogs. Her digimon had descended to rookie, and was now Mulemon, a little toy donkey with short legs. She was stretched out beside Tithonia, fast asleep. 

Tithonia kept an eye on Tusk Mountain. "It's one big virus. We shouldn't stay here." 

Savannah looked up. "The digimon would know if something was wrong." 

Tithonia looked down and stroked Mulemon. Mulemon's ear flicked, but she did not awaken. 

"Nothing will hurt us out here," said Zach. "Digimon are afraid of this place." 

"Except for viruses," Spikemon said, licking his chops as his partner rotated his hot dog. 

Hissmon looked uncomfortable. "This place is taboo to all data types. Tithonia is right, we shouldn't remain here." 

"And where are we going to go?" asked Savannah, frowning at the other girl. "Back to the train tracks? There's no station for another five miles!" 

Tithonia kept her eyes on the grass and said nothing. 

Savannah ate her hotdog while roasting two more for their digimon. "Do you want one?" she asked, looking at Tithonia on the edge of the firelight. 

"No thank you," said Tithonia. She self-consciously took a bite of her cheese sandwich. 

Zach finished his dinner and wiped his hands on his pant legs. "What's the worst that could happen?" she said as Savannah fed their digimon. "Something might attack us. Big deal. We got two champions, now." 

"Yeah!" said Spikemon, gulping down his hotdog. "I can take on anybody. But I wish we still had Base." 

"Me too," muttered Zach. When Tithonia looked questioning, he explained about bringing the baseball bat to life. Then Zach and Savannah fell to discussing the identity of the orange lizard that had stolen Base while they unrolled their sleeping bags and climbed into them. Tithonia wrapped herself in her single blanket and lay down apart from the others, facing Tusk Mountain. 

She was awakened hours later by Mulemon nudging her. She opened her eyes. Their fire had died down, but the digital night was bright enough to see through. Mulemon's ears were flattened, and her nostrils were flared. "Quiet," she whispered. "Wake the others and get back to the Real World, right now!" 

"Why?" Then Tithonia sat up and saw why. 

Circling the base of Tusk Mountain was an eerie procession of ghostly figures. Perhaps fifty ghost-type Bakemon were floating in single file, led by a tall woman robed in green. Her bare arms were extended, and over each of her palms floated a tongue of green flame. 

"Bansheemon is an ultimate," whispered Mulemon, close to panic. "That's stronger than champion. She could kill us all! We've got to get out of here!" 

Tithonia crawled to Savannah in desperate silence and shook her, aware of how easy it was to see in the Digital World's bright night. When Savannah opened her eyes, Tithonia whispered, "Get your digivice, they'll be here any minute." She repeated the process with Zach, as Savannah sat up and stared at the viruses. 

Hissmon and Spikemon awoke, and understood immediately. Spikemon, usually so willing for a fight, shrank back behind Zach and cowered to the ground. Hissmon gasped and flattened himself against the grass. 

Zach started to pick up his camping gear, but Spikemon said, "Leave it. We can come back. We've got to get out of here." 

The specters had rounded the base of the mountain and were walking toward the Digidestined, chanting a dirge in low voices. Bansheemon's empty eyes seemed to stare right through them, and the flames in her hands danced with a ghastly light. 

Then her white face stretched into a smile, and her pace quickened. "She's seen us," hissed Hissmon. "Make a portal, quick!" 

All three Digidestined fumbled with their digivices in blind panic, their terror growing with the approach of that tall, green woman. Behind her, the short white Bakemon began to grin. 

"We're out of range of our node!" exclaimed Savannah, squinting at her device's screen. 

"Make one anyway!" said Zach. "Let me!" 

The air shimmered and a hole curled open. "Go on!" said Zach, shoving Tithonia and Savannah through. He glanced at their three digimon, who were standing shoulder to shoulder between their masters and the enemy, teeth and fangs bared. "Come on, guys!" he said, and jumped through the portal. 

He landed on a chair on the other side and crashed to the floor with a curse. "Dang Real World nights! Are you girls okay?" 

"Yeah," came their breathless voices to his left. 

It was pitch black. He stood up, his knees smarting, and groped for the light switch. His hands encountered a table and another chair. There was no wall. Come to think of it, the air smelled like an alien air freshener. "This isn't my room," he said, encountering yet another chair. "Savannah, where are we?" 

"I know this smell," she said. "Hold still a minute. I think I know where we are." 

Tithonia's voice came from a short distance away. "We're in the library." 

There was a click, and Zach was blinded as the lights came on. He saw Savannah sitting on the floor and Tithonia in the corner, her hand on a light switch. One of the library's computer's screens was glowing blue, with the familiar digiport graphic on it. As they looked stupidly at it, the screen blinked off. 

"Spikemon?" said Zach. 

"Shh!" said Savannah. When Zach and Tithonia stared at her, she smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. You know, it's the library..." 

"The port closed," said Zach, walking back to the computer that had opened. "Our digimon didn't come through." He looked at the empty screen in horror, then held up his digivice and pressed the blue button. The port box sprang to life, but with a message blinking in it. 

CONNECTION TERMINATED 

"Oh my gosh," said Savannah, getting up. "You mean they're still back there with that--with that--" 

Tithonia walked up to a different computer and tried to open a port. Savannah did the same. They tried every computer in the library, even the catalog computers, but they all showed the same message. 

Zach returned to the original computer and stared at it. "Savannah, I have his data stick. He's just a rookie." 

"Run, Hissmon," muttered Savannah, biting her thumbnail and looking at her digivice. "Run for it." 

The silence that followed was terrible. All three were waiting for their digivices to flash red. Zach kept thinking of Bansheemon's horrible smile, and of the little ghosts in a line behind her. 

"What did you mean," ventured Tithonia, "when you said we were out of range of our node?" She was chewing the end of a braid, and had a drawn look as if she were holding back tears. 

"That's what my digivice said," replied Savannah, chewing her other fingernail. "Node out of range, port unavailable." 

"I got that, too, but I hit enter anyway," said Zach. He sat down and grasped a handful of his hair, which he pulled slowly without noticing. "It must have picked the nearest node or whatever to take us out. So we wound up in the library." He checked his watch. "At eleven-forty-five PM. How will I explain this one to Mom?" 

"If we open the doors the alarms will go off," said Tithonia. "We have to stay here." 

"Just what I wanted to do," snarled Savannah, jumping up and staring into a paperback rack. "Spend the light locked in a library." 

"But we can't get back," said Zach, who had not heard a word they said. "Connection terminated. Maybe we can get back in through our home computers. We've got to get back." 

The next morning, the librarian was dumbfounded to open the library doors and find three teenagers asleep in chairs inside, one of them snoring at a computer with an odd red Gameboy beside him. 

* * *

Spikemon leaped for the portal, but it was gone before he could spring. At the same time, he felt the digivice connected to him change from Analog to Remote, as it did when Zach was in the real world. For some reason the portal had closed too soon. 

But there was no time to worry about it. Bansheemon was still approaching, and she did not look friendly. "Run!" barked Spikemon. 

The three digimon bolted across the plain, making for the Railmon tracks, propelled by wild terror. Behind them Bansheemon erupted into shrill laughter, and the Bakemon chimed in with demonic cackling. They did not give chase. 

The three reached the train track and stood panting. Hissmon's long body was covered in dust, and there were foxtails and burrs stuck under his scales. Mulemon was trembling all over, her head hanging. "That was terrible," she whispered. 

Spikemon looked back, but there was no sign of pursuit. "We're just rookies," he panted. "We weren't worth killing, so they scared us." 

"They did a good job," said Mulemon. 

Hissmon raised the front half of his body erect, like a cobra, and looked around. "Did you hear Savannah say that they were too far from their node?" 

"Yes," said Mulemon. "What does that mean?" 

"Humans can only enter and leave the Digital World through nodes," said Spikemon, scratching a burr from between his toes. "They're like a gateway to the real world. Zach's computer was connected to the one near Digiforum." 

"Yes," said Hissmon. "We can travel through them, too. But a remote connection to a node only allows for a limited data transfer." 

"So what happened?" said Mulemon, lifting her head. "They could go through and we couldn't?" 

"They must have filled up the connection," said Spikemon, swinging his head from side to side. "So we got left behind." 

There was a short silence. Crickets chirped all around, and if not for the ominous peak in the distance, the night would have been peaceful. 

"So what do we do now?" said Mulemon. 

Spikemon and Hissmon looked at each other. 

"Want to go back to Digiforum and wait?" 

"Yeah." 

"We could take a Railmon," said Mulemon, cheering up. "How many zip coins do you fellows have?" 

"Three," said Spikemon. 

"Twelve," said Hissmon. "I pad my zip file every time I eat." 

"That explains why you're so thin," said Spikemon, and dodged as Hissmon struck at him. 

"I have five," said Mulemon. "So let's find a Railmon station!" 

The three set off along the track, looking for the nearest station. 


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11 

_The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.   
Ellen Parr_

Figuring out what to do was not so easy for the Digidestined. Savannah and Zach took a bus home, leaving Tithonia to catch one bound in the opposite direction. Zach and Savannah crept into their respective houses through bedroom windows that had been left unlocked. Upon entering his room, Zach went to his computer and tried to open a digiport. It, too flashed the dreaded message: CONNECTION TERMINATED. 

He sat back on his bed and held his head in his hands. He was cut off from the Digital World and Spikemon, and had spent a terrible night at a desk that had put a crick in his neck. At least it was Sunday and he didn't have to go to school. 

Zach took a shower, checked to make sure his mother was asleep, then turned on his computer and logged onto his chat program. Savannah was on. "Any luck?" he asked. 

"No," she replied. "Says connection terminated still. What are we going to DO?" 

"Maybe the network's down," typed Zach, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Can we send them a message with our digivices?" 

"I've looked," said Savannah. "All the communication menus are disabled in the real world." 

There was a pause, and Zach stared at the chat program for a long moment. "I'm getting off, bye," he typed, and logged off. All he wanted to do was go to bed and sleep. 

And sleep he did, past lunch. He awoke at 1:30 and sat up, feeling groggy. He got up and went in the kitchen. His mother was reading a book with the television on, and she got up when she saw him. "Hi Zach," she said. "Have fun?" 

"Not really," said Zach, pulling out milk and a box of cereal. "The network went down, and this game Savannah and I were playing stopped working." 

"That's too bad," said his mother. "How late did you stay up? You look exhausted." 

"All night, mostly," said Zach, glad that he had practiced his story in advance. 

He at his cereal, looked at his homework, and decided to get on the internet. As he surfed, he doodled on a notepad: images of Spikemon and other digimon he had seen. "I don't even have a baseball bat anymore," he thought dully. "Hope that lizard is enjoying him." 

* * * 

"Right! Left! Right! Hit him again! Again! Again! You aren't tired, are you?" 

Chamelemon crouched on the ground, gasping for breath. He clutched Base's handle in both hands, and in front of him hung the long-deserted cocoon of some insect digimon. It made an excellent punching bag. 

"You don't need rest!" said Base. "It's an enemy! Attack it!" 

Chamelemon resumed beating the cocoon with the baseball bat. "Harder!" Base yelled. "Those swings would hardly make it to first base, let alone over the back fence!" 

Chamelemon stopped to rest again, his skin turning from orange to brown and back. 

"Do you really think that's air you're breathing?" said Base. 

"Shut up," panted Chamelemon. "This is stupid." 

"You don't have any attacks because you never attacked," said Base. "You don't use it, you lose it." 

Chamelemon looked at him. "You are annoying." 

"Shoulda thought of that before you swiped me," sneered the bat. "Now we're stuck, my friend, and stuck together." 

"I have better things to do than this," said Chamelemon. He stood up and walked off, carrying the bat. 

"Hey!" said Base. "I wasn't don't training you!" 

"Tough," said Chamelemon. "I'm going to do something useful, like earn my attacks." 

They were a mile north of Chipset, and were walking north, toward the Binary Plateau. Base kept trying to irritate his companion into fighting, but Chamelemon had a long fuse. In reality, Chamelemon kept having mysterious pains in his body, and he lost energy too quickly. It frightened him. He had never before been tired without having fought or worked for long periods. 

If only he had grabbed that digivice while he had had the chance. He had been so close, then looked up and saw that girl's snake, who had frozen him. The memory humiliated him. Before his attacks had gone away, he had possessed high defenses. Now even a mild thing like a paralysis attack affected him. It also upset him that the Digidestined had attacked him. Hadn't they seen he was trying to help them? 

Chamelemon coiled his tail around Base's handle and carried the bat in a neat curl. It was easier to ignore the bat's prattle that way. 

Chamelemon plodded along the edge of a small wood, toward the Binary Plateau. If he didn't tire out, he'd reach it in three days. 

* * * 

Tithonia got off the bus at her apartment complex and climbed the steps to 118. She stood for a moment in the chill morning air, wishing her digivice would let her talk to Mulemon, but it did not respond to her button mashing. After a few minutes she pulled out her key and went inside. 

Her mother was standing at their tiny kitchen counter with a cup of coffee, and her black hair stood on end. "Thony!" she exclaimed as her daughter entered. "What were you doing out there?" 

"I had to make a sudden exit," said Tithonia, holding up her digivice. She went to her mother, put her arms around her and cried. 

"Did something happen to your little donkey?" asked her mother, stroking her hair. 

"I had to leave her," sniffed Tithonia. "We got attacked, and these other kids made a portal, and we went through, and Mulemon didn't come!" 

Her mother murmured soothing words, and gradually Tithonia calmed. She sat down on a stool, and her mother fed her a bowl of homemade granola at the sink. Tithonia felt better after her meal. She kept no secrets from her mother, for they were all the family they had. She had introduced Mulemon to her mother when she discovered she was Digidestined, and explained about the Digital World. Her mother seemed to understand everything. 

Tithonia took a quick shower in their miniscule bathroom, then did her homework while her mother darned a shirt with a hole in it. Tithonia had not had time to do her homework before she went to the Digital World, and was thankful that she had returned early. 

Then she took a nap, having given her mother instructions to wake her if her digivice made a sound. 

It seemed Sunday would never end. Tithonia and her mother could not afford a television, and instead visited the library. Her mother was reading aloud a book called The Trumpet of the Swan, which was how they spent the evening. By bedtime the digivice still had not made a sound, so Tithonia went to bed soothed. 

The next day at school she looked for Zach and Savannah, but did not see them until lunch. They were dressed in black, as usual, and Zach had a staring, disinterested look. Savannah asked Tithonia if she could reach the Digital World, and when Tithonia said no, Savannah lost interest. Tithonia hung around, hoping the older kids would want to talk about digimon, but she was a year younger than them, and thus totally beneath their notice. It was discouraging. 

The days came and went, and still the Digital World was unavailable. Tithonia even tried the computers at CompUSA, where she worked after school. These refused to open as well. She began to wonder if the Digital World had been erased. 

November wore itself out and December drew on. It did not snow in Hilldale, but the mountains in the distance received a dusting of white. Ski resorts opened, and many locals went skiing on the weekends. 

Still the Digidestined were blocked from the Digital World. Savannah wondered if it had been a fantastic dream, and Zach sank back into his old depression. On top of it all, Christmas was approaching, and Zach would have to visit his father out of state, which was not something he enjoyed. The one bright thought in his life was that maybe his dad's computer would let him back into the Digital World. 

* * * 

Spikemon, Mulemon and Hissmon reached Digiforum after a day of travel by train. The three ran past the town, up the hill, and into the meadow where their partners had first appeared. There they stopped and stared, aghast. 

The meadow had been burned black. Trees had been uprooted and thrown into the open, and broken branches littered the ground. In the middle of the devastation they found a small metal fork with a snapped wire at one end. The node had been severed. 

"They can't come back," said Spikemon in a small voice. He picked up the broken node in his claws. "I'll never see Zach again." 

"But there are other nodes, right?" said Mulemon desperately. "They can get in some other way, right?" 

Hissmon slithered up and looked at the node in Spikemon's paws, tongue flickering. "Whoever did this was a very powerful digimon," he said. His eyes narrowed. "And a very stupid one." 

"Yeah," said Spikemon, "because now they've made me mad." 

"Not only that," said Hissmon, "but those nodes are what stabilize the Digital World. If they are all destroyed, the Digital World will wither." He hissed through his fangs. "I'm going to poison someone." 

"Spread out," said Spikemon. "Let's find out who did this." 

The three separated and circled the burned meadow, sniffing and searching. They met back in the center to compare notes. "It's burned, so it's a fire-type," said Mulemon. "Like Meramon." 

"A firetype wouldn't break trees like this," said Spikemon. "Look how cleanly that one is cut. It must have been an android type." 

"You can't have both at once," said Hissmon. "A fire attack might burn up a section of a meadow, but not the whole place. Only a true fire-type could do that." 

"Okay," said Mulemon, swishing her tail. "So there must have been two digimon." 

Hissmon and Spikemon stared at her. "What?" 

"There must have been two," repeated Mulemon. "A robot and a fire. A robot-type would know how to tear out a node, right?" 

"Sparkling logic," said Hissmon. 

"But two!" said Spikemon. "If there's two, they wouldn't stop at one node. They'd take out a bunch!" 

"Then we'd better beat them to the next one," said Hissmon. "And we ought to tell Digiforum to repair their node at once." 

Digiforum was still sullen over the Loricamon incident, and were outraged to hear about their node. Redhatmon, a penguin, was dispatched to investigate the damage, as the three rookies set off in search of a working node. 


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12 

_He lives not long who battles with the immortals, nor do his children prattle about his knees when he has come back from battle and the dread fray. -Homer_

The old digivice lay in pieces on a table, neatly sorted into rows. A battered swivel lamp threw a circle of light across the table, and it illuminated a short fat rat wearing a grungy red T-shirt. His buckteeth were comically large. 

"Well?" hissed three voices in unison in the dimness behind him. 

The rat did not turn around. "It seems in working order. All the parts are in good condition." 

"So why doesn't it work?" growled five voices at once. 

The rat picked up a tiny white object, still without turning around. "This isn't running. It's the connection between a digimon and the device." 

Hydramon's five heads leaned over Haxormon's shoulder for a closer look, and Haxormon closed his eyes until he withdrew. "How do you activate it?" asked one of the heads. 

"Not sure," said the rat. "Nobody's ever looked at the inside of a digivice before. I'm making history here." 

"If you live to tell anyone about it," whispered the heads in stereo menace. "Find a way to activate that device or I'll eat you, one bite at a time." 

Haxormon shivered. "I'll do my best. But I need some extra data to work with." 

Without a word Hydramon dropped five zip coins on the table. The rat picked up all but one and put them in his shirt pocket. "Thanks." He unzipped the last coin and poured its data into a paper folder, then stirred it with a pencil. It made his flesh crawl to touch virus data, but money was money. He didn't choose his employers, but he always made sure they paid well. 

* * *

Hissmon, Spikemon and Mulemon took a train to the little town of Rom, where they knew another node existed. It was where Mulemon had met Tithonia, and they supposed that the real-world town had several nodes connected to it. 

"Hey Mulemon," said Spikemon, "know the difference between Rom and Ram? Ram is where all the sheep live." 

"Hee haw," said Mulemon without mirth. "I think we're too late." 

Rom's buildings were weird geometric shapes, and data types of all kinds lived there. They had no walls around their town and boasted three champion vaccines to protect them. 

As the rookies stepped off the train, they saw a large crowd gathered around a burning building. Most of the building was already cinders, and it looked as if the roof had been torn off beforehand. It was easy to guess that it had been where Rom's node was kept. 

Spikemon strode up to a small pig-like Tapirmon, who was watching the efforts of the water-types to douse the flames. "What happened here?" 

The Tapirmon looked at him in disgust. "Two hoodlums walked in here and smashed our node. Apart from starting a fire, the node will take weeks to repair." 

"My friends and I are tracking the viruses," said Spikemon. "How long ago were they here?" 

"A few hours," said the Tapirmon, looking him up and down. "Got a posse, eh? Good idea. I'll pass the idea along to our guards." 

"Excuse me," said Mulemon, trotting up, "but what did the viruses look like?" 

"Thrashmon and Moltenmon," said the tapir, his long snout twitching in distaste. "Robot-type and fire-type, and they were both ultimates. Your posse is gonna need some bigger mon." 

"Thanks anyway," said Spikemon. "Where's the next nearest node?" 

"There's one outside of Chipset, but they'd be insane to go near there," said Tapirmon. "Gigaterra might have some, but they'd have their nodes under lock and key." 

Spikemon thanked him, and he and his companions withdrew a short distance. "Ultimates!" said Hissmon. "He's right, unless we can digivolve, there's no way we could stop them." 

"But think!" said Mulemon, eyes bright. "Either place they go, the nodes are guarded. We could have some bigger vaccines arrange an ambush!" 

"Right!" said Spikemon, a grin stealing across his face. "So where would they go, Gigaterra or Chipset?" 

"Chipset," said Hissmon. "If they go to Gigaterra, the Code Enforcement would be on them like a Nuumon on a vending machine." 

"Then let's go!" said Spikemon. "Actually, let's go after lunch." He had spotted a fast food joint across the street. 

They spent the last of their zip coins on lunch and train tickets, and ate on the train to Chipset. Spikemon pointed out that they needed all the energy they could get before picking a fight with two ultimates. 

"Last meal before our execution, you mean," said Hissmon. 

At that, Mulemon lost her appetite, and let her companions finish her lunch. 

* * *

Chamelemon had sat down in the sun to bask for a while, thinking that extra warmth might restore his energy, and dozed off. He awoke that afternoon to Base's frantic whispering. "Wake up! Two thugs are coming! Wake up, Chamelemon!" 

The orange chameleon scurried under a bush and lay flat, his skin taking on the gray green color of the foliage. He tucked Base beneath him and the two lay quiet, watching and listening. 

Heavy footfalls were coming toward them, and after a moment they heard two voices. 

"You're a fool to lead us here. Those chaps in Chipset aren't scared of us." 

"They can't touch ultimates," said a low, calm voice. "You think a Mosquitomon could hurt you?" 

The first voice snickered, a hot, hissing sound. "I guess not." 

A shadow fell over Chamelemon's hiding place, and a massive robot digimon stepped into view. It was built like a man, but with thick armored legs and feet. Long spikes stuck forward from its shoulders like horns. Behind it came a fat, thick-bodied creature made of glowing lava, and the grass caught fire beneath it with every step. Chamelemon shrank together and gripped Base. He knew from their size that they were ultimates. 

Moltenmon looked around at the marshland. "This is bad country," he muttered. "Too much water. Ugh!" 

"I like it as little as you," growled Thrashmon. "But it must be done to lock out those humans. You know they can force their digimon to digivolve to any level?" 

Moltenmon made a disapproving sound, and the pair moved off. 

"What are they doing to lock out the kids?" whispered Base. 

"It must be bad," whispered Chamelemon. "What do we do?" 

"Attack 'em!" 

"They're ultimates, you idiot. They'd step on me without even looking." 

"So go to Chipset and tell them there's a free meal," said Base. "Honestly, must I think of everything?" 

Chamelemon circled around through the outskirts of the woods and dashed back toward Chipset, hoping the viruses wouldn't see him. 

The first guards he saw upon reaching Chipset were two Snimon, which were giant praying mantises with blades for front legs. They looked at him curiously as he ran up. "Two ultimate viruses," he panted, pointing. "They're going to destroy something, I don't know what." 

"What types, kid?" asked a Snimon. 

"Fire and robot," said Chamelemon. 

"Idiots," said one Snimon to the other. "That's all marsh out there. Call Vinegarmon and let's go." 

* * *

Spikemon, Hissmon and Mulemon got off the train and ran through Chipset, looking for the node. Everything looked quiet, and no one paid them any attention, except to look hungrily at Hissmon for being a virus-type. 

"It's outside of town, remember?" said Spikemon, racing ahead. They reached the edge of town and met two excited Hornetmon. "Seen any viruses?" Spikemon asked them. 

"Our best guards just went out to bag two big ones," said a Hornetmon. "Fresh meat! I can hardly wait!" 

The three rookies ran out without another word, and dashed into the marshland where a flash of fire showed a battle was going on. "Remember, don't attract attention," said Hissmon. "We're just here to watch." 

"Speak for yourself," said Spikemon, splashing through muddy water. "Oh boy! Look at them!" 

Moltenmon and Thrashmon were attacking the two green Snimon, who looked small by comparison. The node had already been destroyed, for the ground was burned in a wide circle around the viruses, and the Snimon were furious. They attacked, wing-shields upraised, slashing with their blades. Thrashmon let them come to him, grinning, then seized their claws and tried to break them. Moltenmon was hurling fire from both hands as fast as he could go. 

Then a giant vaccine crawled out of the swamp near the rookies, streaming mud. It looked like a scorpion, but lacked a tail. Its front legs had razor-sharp pinchers, and it crawled toward the viruses, dripping swamp-muck as it moved. 

Spikemon and Hissmon watched Vinegarmon in awe, but Mulemon noticed something else. Floundering in the un-scorpion's wake was a small digimon in distress. She waded into the muddy water and moved out to it. It was a frog, smaller than she was, and it was tangled in swampgrass, drowning. She pawed at the tough grass, breaking its stems, and nudged the frog to the surface. It clambered up on the grass, gasping. "Thank you," it said. "That big guy swamp past and knocked me under the weeds." He blinked his golden eyes and gulped. "Oh my. What's going on over there?" 

Vinegarmon had locked claws with Thrashmon, and the two were having a colossal wrestling match. Moltenmon was exchanging blows with the Snimon, but was clearly losing his nerve. 

"Those viruses have been destroying uplink nodes," said Mulemon. "The Chipset guys are going to stop them." 

"Look what they're doing to the marsh!" croaked Frogmon. "They can't fight here!" He leaped off the bank and swam toward the battling digimon with powerful kicks of his webbed feet. 

Mulemon waded back to higher ground, watching him anxiously. "Don't! You're just a rookie!" 

Frogmon climbed up onto the little hill where the ultimates were fighting and hopped fearlessly into their midst. It was several minutes before a Snimon noticed him. It shrieked and retreated, as did its companion. Moltenmon looked down and saw the frog at his feet, and gave a gurgling scream. He jumped backward, stumbled, and fell full-length into the water. 

Vinegarmon and Thrashmon looked down, saw Frogmon, and parted. Thrashmon turned and ran, crashing through the water, heedless of what the water would do to his metal body. 

Moltenmon perished in a burst of steam, and his fog spread over the swamp. Presently the Snimon and Vinegarmon appeared out of the mist, dragging the quenched, frozen data of Moltenmon, muttering and buzzing to each other. 

"Good night," breathed Spikemon. "Was that frog a mega or something?" 

"No, he was just a rookie," said Mulemon. "I don't get it." 

Hissmon pulled his long body into a protective coil. "Oh no, I hope he's not..." 

Frogmon hopped out of the mist, looking small and harmless, but Hissmon curled into a knot and hid his head. "That took care of them," said Frogmon cheerfully. "How do you do? I'm Frogmon." 

Spikemon sniffed him, then gasped and retreated. "You're an anti-virus type." 

Mulemon tilted her head to one side. "Isn't that the same as a vaccine?" 

"It's stronger," said Spikemon, watching the frog's every move. "I thought they were a myth." 

"I'm no myth," said Frogmon. "Just a fluke." He sighed and his yellow eyes looked dull. "Nobody likes me because I'm an anti-virus, so I just live out here in the marsh." He brightened. "It's a very nice marsh. Want me to show you around?" 

"No thanks," said Spikemon, still looking wary. "I think we need to go now." 

"Come visit again sometime," said Frogmon, looking glum. "And I owe you one, miss," he added to Mulemon. 

Hissmon had already left, so Spikemon and Mulemon followed his wide slither-tracks out of the marsh. "He seemed nice enough," said Mulemon. "And we're vaccines, so why be scared of him?" 

Spikemon didn't look at her. "Anti-virus types can kill and assimilate any digimon, not just viruses. Nobody knows how big they have to be, but legend has it that a rookie anti-virus starts out with all attacks." 

"Gosh." Mulemon walked in silence a moment. "Is that why Hissmon was scared?" 

"If you were a virus, wouldn't you be?" 

They found Hissmon waiting for them outside the swamp, weaving back and forth as he scanned the mist. "Thank goodness," he said as they approached. "I was afraid he had attacked you." 

"Some help you would have been," said Spikemon, showing his teeth. "You ran off and left us to him." 

"I did not!" Hissmon snarled. "I left as you were saying goodbye." 

"Liar!" 

The two flew at each other, but Mulemon stepped between them. "Stop it, you two. We need to find a working node and try to contact our partners." 

"Right," said Hissmon, sticking out his tongue at Spikemon. "Let's go." 


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13 

_Gardens and flowers have a way of bringing people together, drawing them from their homes.  
Clare Ansberry, The Women of Troy Hill_

Christmas vacation. Tithonia intended to work the entire time, which would earn enough money to buy her mother a new jacket for Christmas. 

Her mother worked across the parking lot in a restaurant, and once a month they met there for lunch. But today was not that day, and Tithonia was working hard, ringing up purchases, checking receipts, and telling customers which computers were the best buy. She lacked a computer of her own, but she could play with the ones on display in the store, which was why she worked at CompUSA. 

She was so busy she had no time to worry about being locked out of the Digital World. She had no time for anything but work until there came a lull, and she was able to lift her head. CompUSA was decorated for Christmas, and Tithonia had been too busy to even notice. 

She was gazing at the flashing garland hung around the Macintosh corner when a tall boy walked up with his hands in his pockets. "Where's that cute girl with the red hair?" he asked, looking at the other checkstands. 

"Christmas shopping, I imagine," said Tithonia frostily. "May I help you?" 

"Yeah. Do you sell these?" And he laid a yellow digivice on the counter. 

Tithonia's eyes grew round. "Where did you get that?" 

"I found it in my desk," he replied. "Cheap piece of plastic. I figure somebody dropped it. Do you sell them?" 

"No," said Tithonia, still staring. "Those are extremely rare. I'd keep it if I were you." 

"Valuable?" said the boy, grinning unpleasantly. "Maybe I could pawn it." 

Tithonia's heart lurched at the thought of treating a digivice so casually. "Look," she said, "why don't you see if it works? Hold it up to a computer screen and press the blue button." 

"Why, what's it do?" 

"It's a sort of remote control for a computer. But don't let anyone see you." 

"Right." His grin this time was friendlier. He returned the device to his pocket and walked off among the computers. 

He didn't return. 

Tithonia waited five minutes, then went and looked for him, but he was gone. She returned to her register with a pounding heart (the portals worked again!) and found a line of customers waiting for her. 

She slaved away the rest of the afternoon, watching for the boy and telling herself that she had missed him when she looked for him the first time. 

At six her mother came to pick her up, and Tithonia ran and looked for the boy a second time. The aisles were empty. She dashed back to her mother. "Wait five minutes, Mom. I'll be right back." She ran back to the aisles of display computers and pulled out her own digivice. 

The working port was on a computer that had shipped in the previous day. Two seconds later Tithonia was standing in a lush green jungle in the Digital World. 

She checked her digivice for Mulemon's location. Mulemon was three miles away, but had received Tithonia's insertion signal. Tithonia sent her a message on her digivice. "The others and I are okay. I found a port! There's a new Digidestined in here, look out for him. I'll come back tomorrow." 

Then she returned to the real world, delirious with joy. 

* * *

That evening, Savannah received a phone call from a girl with a soft voice. "Hello, may I speak to Savannah Reed?" 

"Speaking," said Savannah. "Who's calling, please?" 

"Tithonia Harris," said the voice on the line. "You know, the other Digidestined?" 

"Oh yeah," said Savannah, sitting down in front of her computer. "What's up?" 

"I found a portal that works." 

Savannah straightened. "You're kidding! Where?" 

"At CompUSA," said Tithonia. "The new computers have access." 

"Have you called Zach?" 

"I tried. It was busy." 

"Did you go through it?" 

"Yes ... do you know the name of that boy who tore up Zach's drawing that time?" 

Savannah made a face. "Rick? Yeah, what's he done now?" 

"He's Digidestined." 

Savannah stared at her computer screen without speaking, lips puckered as if she had tasted a lemon. 

"Hello?" said Tithonia. 

"Are you sure?" said Savannah. 

"He had a digivice. He was the one who opened the portal first. I went after him later, but it puts you in a jungle, and by then he was gone." 

Savannah was silent a moment, then said, "Thanks for telling me. Do you think we could go down there tomorrow and get into the Digital World?" 

"Yes, but I have to work." 

"Thanks. Well, I'd better go now. Bye." Savannah hung up and sat looking at her screen for a long moment. Then she connected to the internet and sent Zach an instant message. "That Tithonia girl found an open digiport." 

Zach's response came all in capital letters. "REALLY? WHERE??" 

Savannah repeated the information about the digiport, then added the tidbit about Rick. 

It was several minutes before Zach typed anything. "Was she sure?" 

"She sounded sure." 

Zach typed his favorite expletive, then added, "Why why why?" 

He and Savannah griped for several more minutes, then Savannah said, "Think of an excuse to leave home tomorrow. We can catch the bus downtown." 

"I'm supposed to be packing to go to dad's," Zach typed, "but I think Mom will let me run some errands. See you tomorrow." 

* * *

When they arrived at CompUSA the next day, Savannah and Zach walked to Tithonia's checkstand. "The computer's over there," Tithonia said, waving a hand toward the PC section. She lowered her voice and leaned toward them. "That other boy never came out yesterday, I asked. I'm worried about him." 

"Oh," said Savannah, trying to look concerned. "We'll look for him." 

"I'll come in after six," said Tithonia. "Good luck." 

Zach had a hard time masking his excitement; he wanted to smile. He and Savannah walked to the PC section and waited impatiently for a gaggle of shopping mothers to leave. Once the aisle was empty, Zach whipped out his digivice. 

The first computer opened obligingly, and Savannah and Zach warped into the portal, were converted to data, and landed in a tiny clearing in a jungle. 

The light was bright green. The sun overhead was nearly hidden by enormous fan-shaped leaves, vines and flowers. There was a green, earthy smell. After an initial glance at their surroundings, Savannah and Zach set out contacting their partners with their digivices. 

"They're about a mile from here," said Zach, squinting through the green trunks around them. "That way." 

"Great, let's go," said Savannah, tossing back her hair. "I can't tell you how glad I am to be back. I was staring to think I'd dreamed it." 

"Me too," said Zach, stepping over a vine as thick as his whole body. "Think we should look for Rick?" 

"No," said Savannah, scowling. "Let him fend for himself. He'll have a partner, won't he?" 

"Yeah." Zach smiled. "Wouldn't it be great if something ate him?" 

They walked in silence a moment, circling tree trunks and climbing through masses of matted leaves. There were no plants they recognized; each tree had one broad leaf on top, like an umbrella, covered in short spiky hairs. Once in a while they passed an orange flower the size of a bathtub, something like a daylily. Birds sang overhead, and crickets chirped all around. 

They rounded a thick tree trunk and came upon a clump of mushrooms as tall as they were, with brown caps and white stems. "Too bad they're probably poisonous," said Savannah as they circled them. "Gorgeous, aren't they?" 

"I didn't know mushrooms could get that big," said Zach. "Look, it's opening up. We must be coming out of the jungle." 

The broad leaves overhead were thinning, and sunlight was filtering through. Savannah checked her digivice. "We're getting closer." 

"Look, there's a house or something," said Zach, pointing to an orange dome rising above the trees. "Maybe that's where they are." 

They climbed over another thick vine and walked out into a clearing around the orange house. But it was not a house. 

Zach stared at the great orange sphere. It had grooves in its sides and a stem on top. It was familiar, although he could not place it. Savannah figured it out first. "That's a pumpkin!" 

"Good grief! Are these pumpkin vines?" said Zach, remembering reading that they grew on vines. 

"I guess," said Savannah, touching the pumpkin's side. "Zach, smell it. Doesn't it smell like Halloween?" 

Zach did so. "Yeah. Do you think there's more?" 

"Yeah, let's go see!" 

They circled the pumpkin and kept walking, guided by their digivices. The vines were fewer now, and from time to time they glimpsed other orange or yellow spheres rising above the leaves. "How could a garden this big even exist?" said Savannah. 

"Maybe it feeds really big digimon," said Zach. "Remember some of those ones in Gigaterra? I'll bet they'd eat a pumpkin pie that big." 

"Zach!" came a distant shout. The Digidestined looked up and saw a green dinosaur, a red snake and a tiny donkey galloping toward them. A moment later their digimon reached them, and there was a fair amount of backslapping, squeals, laughing, and affectionate biting. 

"So where are we?" asked Zach when the reunion was over. 

"Oh, this is Vinegarden," said Spikemon, grinning all over his square face. "It's a really really big garden. We're in the pumpkin patch, but they grow all kinds of stuff." 

"They?" said Savannah, whose arms were full of Hissmon's coils. 

"The plant-types," said Spikemon. "They have green thumbs. Heck, all their fingers are green." 

"Are they dangerous?" asked Mulemon, who was standing a little apart. 

"Some are," said Spikemon. "But only if you steal food." 

Suddenly Savannah pitched forward, dropping Hissmon, and was dragged backward through the pumpkin vines. She managed a muffled cry and grabbed a vine, but thin green tendrils whipped around her arms, tore her loose, and whisked her out of sight. 

Zach and the digimon bolted after her. "Savannah!" he yelled, fumbling out his data stick and sliding it into his digivice. Behind him, Spikemon digivolved to Carnomon and charged ahead, his horned head lowered. 

Whatever had taken Savannah moved fast. It was out of sight, only the swaying of the leaf-trees marking its passage. There was no sound from it or Savannah--Zach hoped it had not killed her. "So they're not dangerous, eh?" he yelled at Carnomon. 

The green dinosaur looked back at him. "How was I supposed to know there was a virus standing back there?" 

"You're a digimon! You're supposed to know!" 

"I'm not the Programmer, Zach! Hurry up!" The carnotaurus raced ahead and soon he, too, was lost to sight. 

Zach slowed, panting and holding his side. Mulemon galloped past him. A moment later Hissmon caught up. "I can't believe this," he was hissing. "We barely joined up, and now she's gone again!" He glared at Zach. "Well? Run faster!" He slithered ahead, leaving Zach in the rear. Zach walked fast, breathing hard and wishing he were in better shape. 

"Hey!" called a new voice from the left. "Hey Holling!" 

Zach looked, then wished he had kept running. Striding toward him through the pumpkin vines was Rick Sterling, tall, blond and handsome. Zach kept walking, and Rick ran to catch up. "What are you doing here, Holling?" 

"I like the scenery," said Zach. Seeing his tormentor dwarfed by the Digital World (and lacking a partner) diminished his terror. Zach actually felt superior, for he knew what was going on and Rick did not. 

"Wait up!" said Rick, jogging behind him. "You don't want to go that way, a big dinosaur just ran by!" 

"Did you see what it was chasing?" asked Zach, glancing at Rick. 

"No," Rick puffed. "All I heard was some rustling. Look, hold up a minute! Where are we?" 

"The Digital World," said Zach. "Didn't you know?" 

"I can't get back home," said Rick. "I spent the night out here. Take me back!" 

"Stick it in your ear," said Zach, and sprinted ahead as Rick snatched at him. 

Zach leaped a vine, descended into a hollow, and found the three digimon waiting for him. "Lost him," reported Carnomon, head hanging. "I can't even smell him. He's a plant and his smell blends in." 

Zach walked up to him and was stroking his head when Rick ran up and stood staring. Zach flashed him a grin, then said to the digimon, "Guys, this is Rick, another Digidestined. His partner hasn't showed up yet, and he's lost." 

The digimon caught the sarcasm in his voice and eyed Rick. "Hello," said Hissmon. "I'm Savannah's partner, but she's been kidnapped." 

"I'm Tithonia's partner," said Mulemon, flicking her ears. 

"And I'm Zach's," said Carnomon. "Zach, the plant-types live over by the beans. We could run over there and see if that's where she's been taken." 

"Okay," said Zach. "Could I ride on your back?" 

"Sure," said the carnotaurus, crouching to let Zach climb on his shoulders. "Let's go." 

Zach flashed another grin at Rick as Carnomon set off at an easy lope through the garden-forest. The other digimon followed, and after a moment, so did Rick. 

After fifteen minutes of traveling, the pumpkin vines ended and Carnomon stepped into a wide clearing of composted ground. Rising in tall green pyramids to the right were the beanpoles, covered in thin vines, tendrils, heart-shaped leaves, and enormous purple bean pods. Straight ahead rose the outskirts of a cornfield, each corn stalk more than six stories high. Even riding Carnomon, Zach felt about two inches tall. 

Carnomon was unperturbed by the size of their surroundings. He jogged toward the pyramids, once in a while crossing a bridge over a canal that opened at their feet. "A whole river waters this place," he told Zach. 

As they neared the first bean pyramid, five small digimon walked out to meet them. Three resembled flower buds with eyes, while two were mushrooms with faces on the stems. They looked nothing like the toadstools they had seen earlier. 

"Hello," said the Floramon in shrill voices as Carnomon approached. "Are you friend or foe?" 

"Friend, so far," called Carnomon, striding up to the group. "I'm a vaccine, and this is Zach, my partner." 

The Floramon and Mushroomon grouped together and whispered excitedly, and the word 'Digidestined' was exchanged. One of the Mushroomon stepped forward and cleared his throat. "We welcome you to Vinegarden," he said, bowing until only his round cap was visible. "How may we be of service?" 

"My friend Savannah was kidnapped," said Zach. "We came to ask if you know anything about it." 

The rookies all whispered together again, and this time a Floramon stepped forward. "Stranglemon just came running out of the vines and entered the third bean tower," she said, pointing down the row. "We didn't pay much attention, but we did notice he was carrying something." 

"He's a champion level," added a Mushroomon, "but he hides very well. He's Blossomon's second cousin." 

"Please don't harm the beans," said a Floramon, looking worried. "They're just getting ripe, and it would be a disaster if one of our towers was burned." 

Carnomon glanced at Zach, then said, "We'll do our best. Thanks for your help." As the rookies retreated, he muttered to Zach, "Great, that means contact attacks only." 

"At least he's the same level as you," said Zach. "You think Hissmon or the donkey could hurt him?" 

"Plants are unaffected by venom," said Carnomon. "I think Mulemon's element is air, but her partner isn't here." 

Rick and the other digimon approached, looking around. Hissmon was moving the quickest, but Mulemon was walking with Rick, instructing him on how to use his digivice. As they crossed a canal, a small shape climbed out of it and followed Rick and Mulemon, unnoticed. Carnomon saw, however, and Zach felt him stiffen. "What?" 

"I don't believe it," growled Carnomon, staring at the digimon following Rick. "I don't believe it! He's his partner!" 

"What? Who?" said Zach, completely lost. 

Rick heard a sound and glanced over his shoulder. "Hey! There's a big frog following us!" 

Mulemon looked around and gasped. "Where did you come from?" 

Frogmon's smile was as wide as his head. "I'm his partner! It just took a while to swim this far." He hopped to Rick's feet and looked up at him with bulging eyes. "I'm Frogmon, and I'm your partner. What's your name?" 

"Rick Sterling," said Rick. "Are you a frog?" 

"Of course." 

Rick nudged Frogmon's moist foot with one toe. "You don't have horns or claws." 

"Not at this age," said Frogmon. "Pleased to meet you, Rick." 

"I don't want a frog!" Rick exploded, throwing his digivice on the ground. "This sucks! I want to go home!" He strode off, and Frogmon picked up his digivice and followed him. 

Mulemon trotted up to Zach and Carnomon, eyes wide. "He's got Frogmon!" 

"I saw," said Carnomon. 

"Why?" asked Zach. "Is Frogmon powerful?" 

"Very," said Carnomon and Mulemon in unison. 

"Then let's get him to help rescue Savannah!" said Zach. "Giddyup, Spikemon." 

"Carnomon," the dinosaur corrected. "I'm not going near that kid or his partner. I can beat a crummy flower myself." And he stalked toward the third bean tower. 


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14 

_Reveal not every secret you have to a friend, for how can you tell but that friend may hereafter become an enemy. And bring not all mischief you are able to upon an enemy, for he may one day become your friend.   
Saadi _

Bean towers were three trellises tied together to form a tipi, which the beans climbed as they grew. However, owing to the vast size of the vines and towers in Vinegarden, the towers had crossbars at intervals up the tower. Once vines covered these crossbars, they made excellent hideouts for viruses. 

Stranglemon was not concerned about Savannah's well being. He deposited her on a mat of interwoven tendrils and leaves, said, "Stay there," and dropped out of sight. 

Savannah sat up, rubbing her arms and legs. She was unharmed, except for a few scrapes where he had dragged her across the ground. She plucked a splinter from the palm of her hand, the looked around. 

She was in a low, green room with vines stretching up into the ceiling, and heart-shaped leaves were everywhere. Near her was a wooden beam of the trellis, and there was a tendril wound around it like a fist. It smelled green and dusty, and a light breeze blew through the leaves. "This isn't so bad," she said aloud, inspecting the leaves she was sitting on. 

"Oh yes it is," said a voice. 

Savannah looked around and spotted an orange lizard lashed to a thick vine by living tendrils. A baseball bat was tied to another vine the same way. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Did he kidnap you, too?" 

"Yup," said the lizard. "He's been after me ever since Base insulted him." 

"I did not insult him," retorted the baseball bat. "What I said was perfectly true." 

"He caught us three days ago, and he doesn't feed prisoners," said the lizard. "You think you could grab a pod and give me a few beans?" 

Savannah peered through the vines under her, but there was no sign of Stranglemon. "Okay." 

Purple pods of all sizes hung on the outer edges of the 'room', and Savannah succeeded in tearing one free and breaking it open. Inside was a set of light purple beans, just beginning to ripen. She climbed across the room to the lizard and placed the beans in his mouth, one by one. They were the size of her two hands together, but the lizard swallowed them whole. 

"Ahh, much better," he said. "I'm Chamelemon, by the way." 

"I'm Savannah," she replied, dropping the empty pod halves through a gap in the 'floor'. "So you're the one who stole Base." She wrenched the baseball bat free of his bindings. 

"I only borrowed him," said Chamelemon. "I was going to give him back." 

"Sure you were," said the bat. "So how's Zach?" 

"Coming to rescue me, I hope," she replied. "I think I'm going to use you." She peered through the trellis, looking for her captor. 

"Hey!" yelped the lizard. "Aren't you going to untie me?" 

"What are you going to do?" asked Savannah, looking severe. "Take Base and split?" 

"Heavens, no," said Chamelemon, looking shocked. "I'd ask to borrow him first." 

"Hey," said Base, "here comes the world's ugliest flower." Savannah dived for her original spot, concealing Base under the leaves, as Stranglemon's vines grasped a crossbar. He swung up into the 'room', a white orchid with dark green leaves and vines, with a brown bulb forming his body. He looked at Savannah and Chamelemon, but did not notice that Base was gone. 

"Well," he said, rubbing his leaves together, "looks like we have some time before the nasty dinosaur and his partner figure out how to climb the trellis. I want your digivice." 

"Yeah, right," said Savannah, one hand closing on Base's handle. 

The plant moved toward her, half-crawling. His orange eyes gleamed. "Do you know the bounty on an active digivice? Two hundred zip coins. I could live comfortably on that much money." 

"And who'll pay you?" Savannah snapped, gripping Base. "The guy who stole the one from the museum? Guess what? Condormon's dead, and my partner killed him." 

"Your partner's not here," said Stranglemon. "And it's well known that humans have no attacks." His tendrils whisked toward her. She swung Base, and to her own amazement she shouted, "Strike one!" An arc of green energy sliced through Stranglemon's vines, and they fell to the beans at their feet. 

Stranglemon stared at his severed vines in disbelief. "But ... humans don't have attacks," he whimpered. 

"Strike two!" Savannah yelled, and a flash of yellow fire tore the leaves and two petals from Stranglemon's face. 

"That's it!" he snarled, and little tendrils whipped around her arms and legs, lifting her up. These were not as thick as his two vines, but they were all he had left. Savannah struggled, but he was stronger than she was. He tore Base from her grasp and flung him across the 'room'. "After I get that digivice," he hissed, "I'm going to pull your limbs off, one by one." 

Base landed near Chamelemon and miraculously did not slide through the floor. He looked up at his friend. 

"I'm still tied up," said the lizard. 

"Bite through the vines, dope," said Base. "After all, there is no spoon." 

"You say the weirdest things," said Chamelemon. He bent over and sank his tiny teeth into the tendrils, and to his amazement they snapped. He landed in the bean vines, picked up Base, and crept toward Stranglemon. 

"I'm still built up to my third attack," said the bat. "Use it so I don't have to reabsorb the energy." 

Chamelemon swung the bat at Stranglemon's midsection. "Strike three!" he cried. 

Stranglemon released Savannah and doubled up in pain. Savannah landed on the vines and crawled toward the orange lizard holding the bat. At the same time there came a muffled roar from below; Carnomon and Zach had arrived. 

"Zach, up here!" Savannah shouted through the floor. 

A heavy blow on her back knocked her flat, and a tendril slowly curled around her waist. "You wretched human," wheezed Stranglemon, straightening with difficulty. "I'll squeeze you in two!" His vine tightened. Savannah gasped, and grabbed Chamelemon's ankle by reflex. 

At her touch, Chamelemon jumped. The sensation of disconnection from the Digital World was gone, and for a blinding, exhilarating instant he was whole. "Chamelemon Blast!" he roared, and lightning exploded from his hands and torched the bulb in Stranglemon's middle. 

Stranglemon shrank. His head, leaves and vines retracted into the bulb with a pop, and the bulb dropped through the floor. Savannah could hear it rustling and bouncing until it struck the ground far below. She released Chamelemon's foot and sat up, rubbing her stomach. At once Chamelemon's sense of purpose vanished, and he could not remember what he had known seconds before. 

Zach's muffled shout filtered up through the beanstalks. "Are you okay?" 

"Yeah," Savannah called down. "I think I killed him. Base is up here." 

"He is?" Zach sounded incredulous. "What's he doing up there?" 

"Kidnapped," replied Savannah. She looked at Chamelemon. "Will you carry him down for me?" 

"Okay," said Chamelemon, blinking and disoriented. "Think I could borrow him for a while?" 

"You'll have to ask Zach." Savannah climbed down through the floor. 

The masses of bean vines were like the granddaddy of all playground jungle gyms. There were plenty of handholds, and cross tendrils grew everywhere, so Savannah was not afraid of falling. By the time she reached the ground, she was sorry she could not climb it again. 

"Savannah!" said Zach, who was nearby with Carnomon. He made as though to hug her, then changed his mind and shook her hand instead. 

She grinned. "Worried about me?" 

"Naw, I just want my bat back," said Zach, watching Chamelemon descend with Base wound in his tail. 

"Hi," said Chamelemon as he reached the ground. He looked at Zach and his skin turned red. He awkwardly held out Base. "Sorry I took him without asking." 

Zach took the bat. "Um, Chamelemon, why did you take Base?" 

"No attacks," mumbled the chameleon, digging one toe into the soil. "And he's a weapon, so..." He lifted his head. "Hey! Could I buy him from you?" 

"You got money?" said Zach, wondering if he should sell his bat. 

"Well, no," said Chamelemon, "but I have some stuff I could trade you for him. I have it in the River Bank, come on!" He scurried out of the bean tower. Zach shrugged at Savannah and followed him with Carnomon. Savannah trailed them, and aimed a kick at Stranglemon's bulb as she went. 

As she stepped into the sunlight, she saw Hissmon slithering up, looking anxious. When he saw her he lifted himself upright and said, "I see he already rescued you." 

"Actually, me and a lizard named Chamelemon took care of Stranglemon," she replied. 

Hissmon froze. "Chamelemon? Is he orange?" 

"Yeah," said Savannah, walking after Zach and Carnomon. 

Hissmon hissed and crawled after her. "How dare he come near you! How dare he! I'm your partner!" 

Savannah glanced back at him. "Are you jealous?" 

"No!" 

"Then why are you worrying about him?" 

"I'm not worrying!" said Hissmon, swelling with indignation. "I just don't want a down and out rookie associating with my human!" 

Savannah was about to point out that she was his partner, not his human, when she arrived at the edge of a canal. Chamelemon had scrambled down the bank and opened a tiny, sand-colored door in the dirt. 

Zach climbed down the sloping bank to Chamelemon, and the lizard began to pull things out of his vault. A keychain, a shiny marble, a gum wrapper, a long metal thing with a knob at one end, a tooth from a DarkTyrannomon, a photo of a girl chameleon ("Whoops, that's not for sale."), an ordinary CD, and several dusty zip coins. 

"None of that's worth a baseball bat," said Zach, who was enjoying this. 

"Oh, wait, how about this?" said Chamelemon, and pulled out the jewel of his collection: a belt pack. 

"Um," said Zach. 

"No, it's not what you think," said Chamelemon. "Look, you put it on like this--" He buckled it around his middle. "--and press this button, and look! A personal firewall!" 

A transparent half-bubble appeared in front of him, curving from his toes up over his head. 

"Oh, a shield," said Zach, touching it. It was hard for a moment, then it softened and his fingers sank through. 

"It'll deflect any attack," said Chamelemon, "but I never use it because it doesn't cover your back." 

Zach considered a moment, then said, "I'll take it." He handed Base to the lizard, who turned off the firewall generator and gave it to Zach. 

Zach put on the beltpack and turned it on. "Look at me! I've got a videogame shield!" He walked up to Carnomon and bumped against his leg. 

Carnomon looked at him sideways. "Those don't cover your back, you know." 

"So I'll always face an enemy, big deal," said Zach. He walked up to Savannah and bumped her with his shield. 

"I want one of those," she said. "I might not have been grabbed and--Oh no." She stiffened and pointed. "Is that Rick?" 

Zach looked. Rick was slouching toward them with his hands in his pockets, Frogmon hopping merrily behind him. 

"Yup. But look what he's got for a partner!" 

Savannah covered her mouth and giggled. "Oh my gosh. I'll bet he doesn't like that." 

"He doesn't," said Zach and the digimon in unison. 

Rick walked up to the far side of the canal and stood there, looking down. Frogmon nudged him. "The plant people want to feed you guys lunch," he said to his feet. "In tower one." 

"Okay," said Zach. "Meet you there." 

Rick grunted and walked off. 

Chamelemon had vanished, so the Digidestined walked down the row of beans to the first tower. Zach removed his data stick, and turned Carnomon back into Spikemon before entering. 

Inside was a wide, flat rock with small stones drawn up to it for seats. Half a dozen Floramon ushered them to the 'table'. There the surprised Digidestined were served vegetable pie, steamed corn, baked potato slices, and a host of other vegetable foods. After lunch there was a berry-and-squash dessert that Zach had eaten half of before he realized it was squash. 

Rick lingered outside for a while before the Floramon noticed him and dragged him in. There he picked at his food, watching Zach and Savannah out of the corners of his eyes, and ate in gulps when he thought they weren't looking. He did not speak to them, and they ignored him. 

The Floramon introduced them to their chef, a sullen-looking flower called Blossomon, who cheered when he saw that the Digidestined liked his food. He insisted that they stay for dinner, and the Digidestined agreed so as not to offend him. 

They were taken on a tour of Vinegarden during the afternoon, and were shown the various giant-sized vegetables the digimon grew. The climate of the area was warm and received plenty of rain, and they had a year-round growing season. 

At six Tithonia joined them, and Mulemon greeted her with exuberance. When Tithonia saw Rick she smiled. "There you are! I was so worried." 

Rick said nothing. 

Tithonia joined them for dinner, and they were entertained by a troupe of tall, slender tulip-people that performed complicated dances and skits while the Digidestined ate. 

"Is this fine dining or what?" Savannah whispered to Zach as they applauded one such skit. 

"Let's come here again," said Zach. 

Returning home that night, Zach felt as if he had been on an exotic vacation. He placed a bag of leftovers from the digital feast in the refrigerator, bade his mother goodnight, and crawled into bed. He listened to Spikemon crawl behind the bed and make himself comfortable. "It's good to be back," Zach whispered. 


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15 

_Deny myself, deny my heart   
Deny your hand, deny your help   
and you offer me eternity   
but why should I buy that?   
-Sinking, Jars of Clay _

"Stay out here until I see who's home," Rick said to the frog in the back seat of his Corvette. 

"Okay," said Frogmon, peering out at the grand house towering above them. "Are you a king?" 

Rick snorted. "I wish." He got out of the car and walked up the curving driveway, peering at the lights in the windows. His father's study was dark, but the lights were lit on the second floor. His mother was out tonight, so it must mean that Candy was home. And all of her collage friends, it looked like. He gritted his teeth and circled around to one of the back doors. There were days he despised his sister and her parties. 

There were scattered lights on in the kitchen, and two cupboards were open, displaying their ransacked contents. Rick glanced in before tiptoeing through the living room, down the hall, and around to the staircase. He paused on the landing, half-hidden by a silk philodendron, and listened. Girl's laughter floated down to him, and snatches of music as a door opened and closed. They were in the game room. He crept up the rest of the way, glanced around the loft, which was strewn with coats, napkins and crumbs, then jogged down the hall to his room, at the opposite end of the house from his sister's room. 

He glanced into his room to make sure Candy had not disturbed it, and paused again to listen for anyone leaving the game room. It sounded like they were dancing. He slipped downstairs again, and out to his car. 

"Okay, come on," he said, opening the door for Frogmon. The amphibian hopped out and followed his partner into the house. 

Rick didn't breathe until Frogmon was safely in his room, and the door was barricaded with a cement block he kept for that purpose. Then he pulled out his piano bench and sat down with a sigh. 

"Are those enemies?" Frogmon asked, his eyes bulging more than usual. 

"My sister's friends," said Rick. "I can still send you back, if you want." 

"Oh no, you're my partner," said the frog. "I'll face the dangers with you. I'm not scared." 

Rick looked at him a moment. "I'll bet you're not." He swung around and lifted the piano lid, flipped on the power, and tapped out a nervous jingle. 

Frogmon hopped up to the piano and listened, entranced. "You play music!" 

"It's not that great," growled Rick, staring at the wall above the piano, as he did when playing without sheet music. "Mom makes me." He switched to a slow, dark series of chords. Frogmon listened raptly, his throat moving in and out. At a high point in the music his throat bulged out and he croaked, very loudly. Rick jumped and stopped playing. "What?" 

Frogmon looked down, embarrassed. "Sorry. It just comes over me when I hear pretty music." 

"Pretty? Hah," said Rick, but he felt a little better. "Look, it's late. Where are you going to sleep?" 

Frogmon looked around, then hopped into the bathroom. "If you run a little water in the tub, that'd be great," said the frog. "It'll be almost as nice as my marsh." 

Rick did so and watched as Frogmon climbed into the tub and nestled down in the water. "Ahh, heaven," he whispered. "Good night, Rick." 

"Yeah, sure," his partner mumbled, shutting off the light and retreating to his room. He sat on his bed and gazed at his football pictures on the wall, wondering how he had got into this situation. It was hard to believe he had just spent two days in another world, but he was still stuffed to the gills from his dinner in Vinegarden. It was real, but ... He flopped back on his pillows. Why did it have to be with a bunch of school losers? 

* * *

Christmas vacation slipped by, and the Digidestined visited the Digital World every day, relishing their secret anew and exploring Vinegarden, as it was the only working node they could find. 

Christmas arrived, and Zach was packed off to spend the remainder of his vacation with his father. He returned two weeks later in low spirits. He had always hoped his parents would get back together, but now his father was getting remarried. He had met his father's fiancé, who was pleasant enough, but only a few years older than Zach. It shocked him. He was furious at his father for abandoning his mother, but he swallowed his anger and brooded. His depression began to return, stronger than ever. 

January was cold and rainy. The overcast skies matched Zach's spirits, and even the sunny days of the Digital World could not revive him. Spikemon watched helplessly as his partner spiraled. Savannah began worrying about Zach again, and fussed about his medicine and whether he would be at school the next day. She told Spikemon to watch him all the time, and Spikemon replied that he did. 

Zach's mother saw his depression returning, and took him to the doctor, who prescribed even stronger anti-depressants. Zach took them dutifully, but they had little effect on his mood. Each day he was a little more passive, and went to school in a kind of trance. 

Savannah had other worries as well. Hissmon was acting strangely. At night he would creep about the house, and sometimes woke her by staring into her face. He always managed to get outside, and roamed the neighborhood as if looking for something. He would not tell her why he did these things, and she was afraid he was going into a kind of depression like Zach's. 

Rick did not pick on them anymore, but avoided them at school. He visited the Digital World once in a while, but he was so ashamed of Frogmon, and of being seen with the others, that he kept to himself. Tithonia, on the other hand, fell over herself to make friends. She hit it off with Savannah, and the girls found they had much in common. 

* * *

Zach had not visited the Digital World in a week, but let himself be taken there by Spikemon and Savannah, who thought a trip would do him good. It was then they noticed the change. 

Zach was grayscale. His skin was gray, his clothes were gray, his hair was gray, and he looked like a black and white photo of himself. He shrugged when Savannah told him this, and slouched off. Spikemon stared after him, yellow eyes wide. "I've never seen that happen before," he said to Savannah. "What could it mean if he's lost his color?" 

Hissmon slithered up behind them and peered after Zach. "It must be because he's depressed. Watch him, Spikemon. He could get hurt in that state." 

Spikemon nodded and galloped after his partner. 

Nothing happened during that visit, but as the days passed, Zach's colors became darker, matching the progression of his depression. Tithonia went with them once, and was horrified to see Zach lose all color upon entering the Digital World. Rick could not be reached, for he tried to have as little contact as possible with the other Digidestined. 

One morning soon after, Zach awoke and wondered why he should bother to climb out of bed. He lay there, staring at the ceiling, and wondered what made life worth living. Even the Digital World had lost its charm, for everything seemed flat and colorless there. There were no big enemy Digimon to fight, nothing to do, no one to bother with. Even Spikemon annoyed him, always dogging his heels and asking sharp, nervous questions. 

As he lay there in bed he felt the compulsion to try the digiport on his own computer one more time. 

Without waking Spikemon, he got up, pulled on some clothes, and held his digivice toward his computer screen. 

The port opened, and a second later he was standing on a path through a dark wood. The trees were knotted and ugly, hung with moss that swayed in a damp breeze. The world was bathed in shades of gray. But for some reason he did not return home. He sat down on a rotten log and stared at nothing. 

The forest was completely quiet, except for a constant breeze, and it smelled of decay. At least he felt more at home here than he did in the real world, where there was no use for him. He did not notice the forest around him growing darker. 

* * *

Spikemon awoke and found Zach gone. A sniff told him that Zach's mother was still home, and ten second's worth of listening told him Zach was not in the house. Spikemon sniffed around the room in growing alarm, then noticed the port on the computer screen. Someone had just passed through. 

Zach was in the Digital World without his partner. 

* * *

Zach sat on the log, gazing at the gray pebbles on the path, and thinking about how worthless his life was. Why should he be alive when there was nothing in life to look forward to? Why had his parents had to have him, when he was sure someone else wanted his life more than he did? 

Gradually he became aware of someone sitting at the other end of the log. He lifted his head and saw a robot three times his height sitting beside him. But he was not afraid, and returned his gaze to the ground. The robot said nothing. 

* * *

The window opened easily, and Spikemon bounded through it, landed outside with a thump, and bolted for Savannah's house, not caring who saw him. His partner was in danger, he could feel it. 

Savannah was brushing her hair and checking her email when Spikemon scratched at her window. She opened it, fearing the worst. "Where's Zach?" 

"The Digital World," panted the dinosaur. "The ports work again. He went without me. Try yours, hurry!" 

* * *

Zach did not flinch when the robot placed a cold hand on his back. He looked dully at the claws on its fingers. 

"I know what you're going through," said the robot in a low, smooth voice. 

Zach lifted his head. The forest around him was dark, but the robot shone in shades of silver with red trim. Its eyes were red as well. "You do?" he said. 

"Yes," said the robot. "Rejected by your parents, rejected by your friends. There is no one who cares about you--not even your partner." 

Zach had no energy to speak, but he nodded. Spikemon was not here, so he probably didn't care. The hand on his back was cold and heavy. 

"There are others who feel as you do," said the robot. "This is what forms a virus: they are a program cast out and hated by the others. The virus must go out, alone." 

In the distance, three figures appeared, and Zach gazed toward them with revulsion. There was a twisted, witchy-looking woman, a knotted venomous thing, and a two-legged monster with slavering fangs. But he felt the chill of the robot's metal against his back, and knew the apparitions would not harm him. 

* * *

"Zach!" Spikemon roared as soon as his feet hit the ground. They stood in a green wood of tall, majestic trees, and Zach was seated on a log a short distance away. But seated beside him was Thrashmon, a robot with metal spikes on its shoulders, and one of his dangerous clawed hands was around Zach. 

But Zach's black and white colors had darkened so much he was black from head to toe, as if he had bathed in ink. Only a glint in his face showed where his eyes were. Spikemon stared, his jaw hanging open. Then he roared, "Thrashmon, let go of him!" 

* * *

"The real world holds no purpose for you," Thrashmon's smooth, quiet voice went on in Zach's ear. "Say it." 

"It has no purpose for me," said Zach tonelessly. 

"Leaving that world would be best." 

"It would be best," repeated Zach. The world was so dark now he could not see the monsters that had appeared. He looked up at Thrashmon. "Why is it dark?" 

"Because you see the Digital World with new eyes," said the robot. "Under the data is this: nothing. It is a simulation fed into your brain, nothing more. There is nothing in it worth fighting for." His eyes changed from red to yellow, and as Zach watched, it seemed to him that the robot was looking at him with five pairs of yellow eyes. The hand on his back was heavier. "Your existence is meaningless." 

* * *

"No it's not!" shrieked Spikemon, who had drawn close enough to hear Thrashmon's voice. "No digimon made by the Programmer was made without a purpose!" 

"He cannot hear you," purred Thrashmon. "He is deaf and blind to all but me." 

Spikemon turned to Savannah, eyes wide. "We need that other kid and Frogmon." 

"No digimon can stop me," said Thrashmon, but it sounded as if two voices were speaking at once. 

Savannah stared at him, then grabbed Hissmon. "I'll be back soon," she whispered, and ported out. 

Zach was slumping forward under the weight of Thrashmon's hand. "I'm worthless," he muttered. 

"It is your fault your parents divorced," said Thrashmon in multiple voices. "It is because of your worthlessness." He continued in this vein, Spikemon shouting retorts that Zach could not hear. And Zach slumped lower and lower under the weight of the words. 

* * *

Rick was getting ready for school when the doorbell rang. "Candy, will you get that?" he called. 

"You get it, buttface," she yelled back from her room. He called her a worse name, and she reciprocated, until they were interrupted by another blast from the doorbell. 

Muttering, Rick stamped downstairs and opened the door to find Savannah and Hissmon out in broad daylight, looking rumpled and distracted. "We need you to come to the Digital World," said Savannah. "Please. Now." 

"What's the matter, your little game get out of hand?" he sneered, and slammed the door in her face. At once she pressed and held the doorbell, and he was forced to open it again. "Look, what do you want?" 

To his surprise, she pushed her way inside, Hissmon at her heels. "Do you have a computer?" 

"Get out of our house!" 

"Zach's gonna be dead in a few minutes," she snapped, looking Rick in the eye. "We need you." 

"Good, the little freak can die and go to--" Rick broke off in a yell as Hissmon sank his teeth into his ankle. The snake let go without drawing blood, but it frightened Rick into silence. 

"I'll have him bite you for real next time," said Savannah. "Where's your computer?" 

* * *

Spikemon was running in little circles, whining. Every moment he was losing Zach, and he could not fight Thrashmon, who was an ultimate. The strange thing was that Thrashmon was not interested in fighting. His whole attention was fixed on Zach's mind. 

Spikemon ran up to Zach's feet and reached out to the shadow of his partner, but Thrashmon lifted his other arm and aimed his magnablaster at Zach, forcing Spikemon to back off. "Please, stop," Spikemon begged. The robot ignored him. At his wit's end, Spikemon began to run in circles again, crying, "Help! Help! Somebody help me!" 

When Savannah arrived with Rick and Frogmon in tow, the little dinosaur was beside himself. He ran to them, then dashed back to Zach. "We've got to do something! We gotta!" 

Rick stared at the black shape that had once been Zach. "What happened to him?" 

"We think that his depression caused it," murmured Savannah, "but we're not sure. See what your partner thinks." 

Rick glanced at Frogmon, who was surveying the situation calmly. "Well?" 

"We can't attack either of them," said the frog. "If Zach is depressed, the problem is what's inside him, not what's outside." 

"That's a big help," said Rick. "Just the kind of response I'd expect from a frog." 

"He's right," said Hissmon, who was also quite calm. He slithered to the trembling Spikemon and said, "Calm down. Your anxiety will only make him worse." 

"But he'll die!" wailed Spikemon. 

"Shh," said the snake. "He won't die, his soul will simply--" 

He was interrupted as Tithonia leaped through a digiport and landed, panting, Mulemon beside her. "Something's wrong," she said, holding up her flashing digivice. "What's the matt--Ohhh," she trailed off, staring at Zach. For a moment all the Digidestined stared at him. 

"He's my partner," said Spikemon under his breath, "and I'm going to fight for him." He lunged forward, leaped over Thrashmon's fist, and landed in Zach's lap. He wrapped his arms around Zach's neck and clung there, eyes shut, ignoring Thrashmon's magnacannon. Zach sat there, stiff and wooden. "Come back, buddy!" Spikemon whispered. 

Thrashmon did not attack, but he kept his blaster trained on the two. He, too, sat motionless. Savannah, Tithonia and Rick looked at each other. "What do we do?" whispered Tithonia. 

Rick squinted at Zach. "You know, he looks like he's in the dark." 

"What?" 

"Look, if he was shut in a dark room, and you could see him, but not the room, he'd be all dark like that." 

"So what do you mean?" said Savannah. "We need to shine a light on him?" 

"Sure," said Rick. "Who's got a flashlight?" 

"No need," said Frogmon. "His partner's gone after him. Look." 

They looked and saw that Spikemon had vanished. Upon looking closer, they saw that the dinosaur had turned black as well, still clinging to Zach. 

"So what do we do now?" said Tithonia. 

Savannah held up her digivice. "Get ready to attack the robot." 

* * *

Spikemon had never seen a night so dark, not even in the real world. All he could see were Zach and Thrashmon, and Zach only looked half-awake. Spikemon shook him. "Zach! Wake up! You've got to fight it!" 

"Nothing worth fighting for," muttered Zach. 

"Sure there is!" said Spikemon. "There's love and happiness and good food, and, and--me, Zach! Won't you fight for your partner?" 

Zach looked up at Thrashmon. Spikemon followed his gaze and bristled, baring his teeth to the roots. Looming above them was not Thrashmon, but a hideous monster with five heads. Each head was leering in triumph. 

Before he knew what he was doing, Spikemon snarled, "Spark Blast!" He spat a tiny fireball at the monster. The heads smiled at his pitiful attack, but Zach jumped at the flash of light. He blinked slowly at his partner. Spikemon fired off another attack at the looming monster, then checked his partner's face. "C'mon Zach, snap out of it! Don't you know how bad this is? That's right, don't look at him, look at me!" He held Zach's gaze. "Don't listen to him, he's just a virus." 

"But ... I'm a virus," said Zach, his eyes straying to the monster above him. "I'm a blemish on the world..." 

Spikemon breathed another fire attack to get Zach's attention. "That's a lie!" he snorted. "You're not a virus, humans can't be viruses. Don't look at him, he's nothing, you hear? This isn't the real Digital World, this is a distortion. It's a distortion!" He peered into Zach's dull eyes. "You'd got to shake it, I can't pull you out." 

"Nobody ... can," sighed Zach, settling under Thrashmon's hand. 

"Stop it!" roared Spikemon, and kicked at the hand. To his surprise it fell away as if Thrashmon were not holding it there. Zach drew a breath and sat up a little. 

"Zach, the Programmer can get us out of a distortion," said the dinosaur. "He left a way out of all the bad places. Wake up! We'll get out!" At least Zach was still looking at him. 

Spikemon reached down and touched Zach's hand, and saw with horror that Zach's courage level had been drained to zero, and his other stats were dropping. Spikemon's heart quailed, and for a second he wondered if he could possibly save his partner now. Then an idea struck him. 

All digimon had a small pouch on their belly or the inside of an arm where zip coins were deposited, which contained excess data that could be used in trade. Spikemon had four at the moment, but they contained junk data. No, Zach needed something stronger than that. The dinosaur transferred his battle and attack files recklessly to a zip coin, pulled it out of the pouch on his arm, and unzipped it. "Drink this," he said, holding the open edge to Zach's lips. Zach was powerless to resist, and drank the contents of the little coin in one swallow. 

The change was instanious. Spikemon sensed that his vital files were missing, and his head began to swim. At the same time, Zach's eyes brightened. "Spikemon?" He blinked as if awakening from a long nap, and caught Spikemon as the dinosaur toppled sideways. The world lit as if the lights had come on, but Spikemon was too dizzy to comprehend it. 

"Fight," he mumbled as Zach let him down to the ground. "Fight them, fight them, don't give up." His square head flopped to the ground, and his eyes glazed as he shut down. 

"Error," Zach's digivice flashed. "Spikemon identity damaged." 

Spikemon did not awaken for a long time. 


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16 

_Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.   
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,   
we ourselves flash and yearn,   
and moreover my mother told me as a boy   
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored   
means you have no Inner Resources."   
I conclude now I have no inner resources,   
because I am heavy bored.   
-John Berryman _

Spikemon was warm and comfortable. He lay as he was for a long time, half-dreaming, tucked in a pleasant cocoon of soft warmth. Sunlight filtered through leaves and played across his face. Birds sang all around, and nearby was a deep musical purring. He did not want to awaken and leave this comfort, but there was something he needed to do, something important... 

"Zach!" 

Spikemon shot to his feet, then toppled to one side and lay propped up on a forearm, disoriented. 

"Don't worry about your partner," rumbled a voice nearby. "He has been here every day since your accident to check on you." 

Spikemon's bearings began to return. He was in a clearing in the woods, and had been sleeping against the side of a huge animal. He peered along its violet length. It was an exotic dragon with a head like a goat, and large, clear blue eyes. With its body covered in violet fur, it resembled a bizarre dog. 

"Hello," said Spikemon, waving a paw. "Azulongmon, is it?" 

"Luceramon, actually," said the dragon. "I've spent the last eight days rebuilding your missing data." As Spikemon lay down at its side again, the dragon added, "That was quite rash, to pour all your data into your partner, but it did the trick." 

"It did?" said Spikemon, trying to remember. "Zach woke up?" 

"And more than that," said Luceramon. "When he emerged from the distortion, he was carrying three new data sticks." 

Spikemon cocked his head, puzzled. 

Luceramon smiled. "Mulemon achieved ultimate, and Frogmon went to champion. The third stick was for you, but you were unconscious, so Zach loaned it to Savannah. And Hissmon digivolved." 

Spikemon tried to imagine Hissmon digivolving. "But it was my data stick--how could he use it?" 

"We're not sure," said the dragon. "They defeated Thrashmon together." 

Spikemon sat up, shaking his head. "So the virus helped save me. I guess he's all right after all." He sat still for a while, listening to birdsong and the breeze in the trees. Luceramon lay curled in an arc, his head resting on his forepaws, and one eye fixed on Spikemon like a watchful nurse. 

The day passed quietly, with Luceramon producing a basket at noon that was packed with food sent from Vinegarden. Spikemon enjoyed this immensely, and slept for several hours that afternoon. He awoke around four to the sound of voices. 

Luceramon's head was turned, and he was speaking to a small digimon whom Spikemon recognized. "Hey there, Chamelemon," he called to the orange lizard. Chamelemon flicked an eye in his direction and continued speaking to Luceramon. Spikemon moved closer, trying to hear. 

"...Conch Rock," Chamelemon was saying, his baseball bat resting on one shoulder. "I saw the data flying, he must have a jillion slaves in there. I talked to a Crabmon, and he told me it's the stronghold, and you can tell because the weather is bad." 

"Whose stronghold?" said Spikemon. 

"Hydramon's," said Luceramon. "Your friend was brave enough to locate his lair without being captured." 

"And killed," added the baseball bat. "You forgot killed. Rookies are snacks down there." 

"Shut up," said Chamelemon automatically, as if he had said it hundreds of times. "He's mortally afraid of the Digidestined, according to the buzz. If they all get together--" He looked at Spikemon. "I'll come with you, too. After all, I'm armed." 

Spikemon looked the lizard up and down. Chamelemon was skin and bone, and his eyes were sunken. "Have you eaten lately?" asked the green dinosaur. 

"Can't eat," said the chameleon, shaking his head. "Makes me sick. But I think once we take out Hydramon, I'll get my attacks back." 

Spikemon looked worried. "Maybe you shouldn't come. You look like you've got DCP." 

"My data's not corrupt!" said Chamelemon, turning red. "I just haven't been able to eat." 

"You can't eat, you can't fight," said Spikemon. "And just how big is Hydramon, anyway?" 

Chamelemon looked at the ground. "Mega." 

"Mega!" Spikemon exclaimed in horror. "He's a mega? How can you think we can beat him?" 

Chamelemon didn't answer, but Base said, "Aw, c'mon, Spikemon. Thrashmon was an ultimate and you guys took him out." 

"Ultimates are not megas," growled Spikemon. "Mega is the strongest there is, and they can take out ultimates with one claw behind their back." 

Chamelemon looked at him. "But wasn't Hydramon the one who menaced your partner?" 

Spikemon was silent a moment, then said, "How did you know that?" 

"Zach told us," said Luceramon. "He was remarkably coherent about what happened in the distortion. And you talk in your sleep." 

Spikemon grinned sheepishly. "I couldn't let him take Zach, you know. Where is Zach?" 

"He comes in directly after school," said Luceramon, "which is right about ... now." 

On cue a digiport formed in midair, and Zach bounded out and ran up. "Spikemon! You're up!" 

The dinosaur flung himself at his partner and they exchanged a rowdy greeting. 

"You're in color again!" Spikemon exclaimed. 

"Yup," said Zach. "You didn't have to give me all that data, you know. You'd already broken that guy's power by distracting me." 

Spikemon sobered and looked into Zach's eyes. He looked like his old self, and yet ... "Well, we won't know until we destroy him. Chamelemon, tell Zach about Hydramon's hideout." 

The chameleon obliged, and Zach grew pale at the idea of challenging a mega. Not only a mega, but a monster who had used Thrashmon to feed darkness into Zach. Spikemon sensed his discomfort and put a paw in Zach's hand. Zach's courage level had returned to normal, he noticed, but now Zach had a defense level, currently at 3. 

Chamelemon ended his account with, "And it'll take all of you Digidestined, so I'm coming, too." 

Zach shrugged. "Sure, come along. But I'll have to talk the others into it. Oh..." He dug into his pockets. "You guys wouldn't want to take these off my hands, would you?" He held out three chocolate bars. Spikemon and Luceramon accepted two, and Chamelemon looked wistfully at the remaining bar. 

"I'd really love one of those..." 

Zach unwrapped it and held it out. Chamelemon took it in two fingers and studied it. "Maybe..." He broke off a piece and ate it, but gagged and spat it out. "Can't," he coughed. "Tastes great, but I can't." 

Zach, Spikemon and Luceramon exchanged an awkward glance. "Maybe you should stay here," Zach began, but Chamelemon's body flashed green, then dark red. 

"I've got to go, hear me? If I don't help you take down a big digimon, I'm gonna die! I've got to!" 

"Okay, okay," said Zach, holding up his hands. "Fine. I'll let you know when we decide to go." Still looking at the chameleon, Zach thanked Luceramon and took Spikemon back to the real world. 

Spikemon landed on the floor, then jumped up on Zach's bed. "I'm glad your computer's port works again. They must have rerouted traffic to a new node." 

Zach put his digivice in a drawer, then sat down in his desk chair. "Yeah. When do you think we should go after this Hydramon?" 

"As soon as we can," said Spikemon. "Want to go now?" 

"I have to tell the others," said Zach, lacing his fingers. "They might not want to fight another digimon so soon." He looked down. "All three of them fought to save me, after you went down." 

"Save you?" Spikemon frowned. "But I saved you." 

"You pulled me out of the distortion," said Zach. "Thrashmon was still there and he was mad. It was a good thing I had those new data sticks." 

Spikemon hung his head. "I wish I could have fought him." 

"Oh, you did enough," said Zach. "I couldn't absorb your data, but because of what you did, it formed new data sticks." 

Spikemon peered at him. Even here in the real world, he thought there was a change in his partner, as if Zach had absorbed a little of the extra data without knowing it. There was something different about his eyes. He also sensed that Zach was growing uncomfortable, and changed the subject. "Got any more chocolate?" 

* * *

"Although Debussy had some weird ideas about harmony," said Rick, "his music is fun to play. Listen." He swiveled to face his piano and began to play an odd piece, obviously classical, but with a disjointed sort of melody. 

Frogmon sat with his head tilted. "I like it." 

"I'll tell you who sounds neat is Bach," said Rick. "A keyboard doesn't do this one justice, but listen." He changed instruments to 'pipe organ' and began to play the Fugue in D Minor. Frogmon's eyes bulged at the first sinister strains, but after another moment he relaxed and enjoyed it, his throat pulsing. 

Rick stopped in the middle. "That's as far as I can get without sheet music." 

"Wonderful!" said Frogmon. "You ought to show the others how well you play." 

"No way," said Rick, face darkening. "They'd tell the guys, and then the whole football team would laugh at me. You just don't play classical piano in this day and age." He opened his piano bench and rummaged around for sheet music. 

Frogmon watched him. "How come you don't like the other Digidestined?" 

"One's too young and the rest are losers," said Rick, straightening up and placing a page on the music rack. "Name me a Goth who turned out." 

"Matt Ishida," replied Frogmon. 

"Who?" 

"Matt Ishida," replied Frogmon, slowly. "He was a Digidestined from Japan, and he was like Zach and Savannah before he got to the Digital World." 

"And what's he do now?" said Rick, sitting down. 

"He goes by 'Matt' in The Icebreakers. Plays hard rock." 

Rick lifted his hands to the keyboard, but froze with a funny look on his face. He stood up, went to a rack of CDs beside his stereo, and took one down. Opening the booklet, he located a photo of the band and held it out to Frogmon. 

"Him," said the frog, indicating a tall young man with wild blond hair, holding an electric guitar. 

Rick looked closely at the picture. "So you were Digidestined." He put away the disk, returned to his piano, and stared at the sheet music. 

"Don't judge people by school," said Frogmon. "Real life is a whole different ball of wax." 

Rick did not reply, and began to play a ragtime, which was not classical but fun to play. Frogmon listened, his throat pulsing to the rhythm. The house was quiet, for school was out, Rick's parents weren't home and his sister was out with her friends. 

Rick's computer chimed, and he glanced at it. Displayed on the screen was an instant message. He got up from the piano and walked to his computer desk. "Holling," he said with surprise. "Where'd he get my screen name?" 

"I gave it to Spikemon," said Frogmon, looking smug. "What's he want?" 

Rick sat down and looked awkward. "He's ... thanking me. For defending him." He sat there a moment, then typed, "Welcome." 

There was a moment of digital silence, then Zach typed, "Did you know Frogmon could digivolve?" 

"No," replied Rick. "Never saw it before." He hesitated, then added, "It was cool." 

"Way. 

There was another pause. Rick shifted positions in his chair, as if he could escape the prodding of his conscience. He knew he needed to apologize to Zach for tormenting him, but doing it was like having splinters driven under his fingernails. 

He was conveniently distracted when Zach typed, "I've got another mission for us." 

"What?" 

"There's a big bad digimon threatening the existence of the Digital World and so on. The digimon want us to go take him out. Seems he's scared of us." 

"Who told you?" 

"A chameleon guy I sold my baseball bat to. He went to the guy's hideout and snooped around." When Rick typed nothing, Zach said, "Want to try it?" 

"Sure," said Rick. "How long will it take?" 

"No idea. Apparently it's quite a walk. This weekend?" 

"I have a football game," replied Rick. "Make it next weekend." 

"Okay." A pause. "I still have to talk the girls into it." 

"Good luck. Your girlfriend doesn't like killing." 

"She's not my girlfriend." 

There was an awkward pause. 

"I need to go now. See you around." And Zach logged off. 

* * *

Savannah was unhappy about another battle, when Zach IMed her that afternoon. "Thrashmon screamed," she typed. "That really got to me, Zach. I don't care if they are viruses, they're alive and we kill them. I don't want to kill anything else." 

"Come on, Sav," Zach typed. "Hydramon was the one who was trying to take over my mind. He's dangerous. You know I'm afraid to go back to the Digital World because of him?" 

There was a brief pause. "I didn't know that." 

Zach was a little nervous about returning to the Digital World, but he figured stretching the truth wouldn't hurt. "Yeah. And what if he does that to other kids? Once we take him down, we won't need to fight anymore." He crossed his fingers, glad Savannah couldn't see him. 

There was a long pause. 

"I guess you're right," Savannah typed at last. "When do you want to go?" 

"Next weekend. Rick has a football game this weekend." 

"Check. We'd better track down Tithonia, I don't know her number." 

"What's her last name?" 

"I ... don't remember. Want to go to CompUSA?" 

* * *

Tithonia had already left when they arrived. They found out her last name from a co-worker (it was Harris), and looked up her address in the phone book. They tried calling the number listed, but there was no answer. "Look at the address," said Zach. "They live over on the east side." 

"Gosh, they must be poor," said Savannah, to whom poverty was a new concept. 

They took a bus down to the east side of town and found apartment 118, but there was no answer to their knock. As they stood there on the steps, wondering what to do next, a tall, dark-skinned woman climbed the steps with two bags of groceries in her arms. 

"Oh, hello," she said, scrutinizing their faces. "Do you want something?" 

"Are you Mrs. Harris?" said Zach. When she nodded, he extended a hand. "I'm Zach, and this is Savannah. We're Tithonia's friends..." He trailed off, acutely aware of their Gothic appearance. 

To his relief she smiled. "Oh yes, she's told me about you. Won't you come in?" She unlocked the door and led the way inside. 

Zach had never seen such a tiny apartment. Mrs. Harris placed her grocery bags on the sink and began to put their contents away. "Have a seat. Tithonia took Mulemon out for a run, but they should be back any minute." 

Zach and Savannah sat down on the threadbare couch before her words sank in. 

"Mulemon?" said Savannah. 

"Yes, her digimon," said Mrs. Harris. 

It was strange to hear the name on the lips of an adult. "You know about digimon?" said Zach. 

"Heavens, yes," said Mrs. Harris. "Either of you want something to drink?" 

"No thanks," they said. When an uncomfortable silence followed, Savannah ventured, "So, what do you think of Mulemon?" 

"She's darling," said Mrs. Harris. "Brings back memories of my own childhood. Except that mine was a horse." 

Zach glanced at Savannah. "Yours...?" 

"My digimon," said Mrs. Harris. "She died years ago, but I still consider my time in the Digital World as one of the best times in my life." She wiped her hands on a dishcloth and faced them, smiling. "It's good to know the Digital World is still around. I hear you all reached ultimate the other day." 

Zach felt as if his brain had gone into shock. "Y-yes," he stuttered. He glanced at Savannah and saw that she, too, was at a loss. An adult who not only knew about the Digital World, but was as familiar with it was themselves! 

They were spared further shock as the door opened and Tithonia stepped in, leading Mulemon with a piece of string around her neck. "Oh, hi," she said to Zach and Savannah, then untied the string from around the donkey's neck. 

"You take her out in public?" said Savannah, aghast. 

"Sure," said Tithonia. "I tell people I'm in 4H. What are you guys doing here?" 

"We tried to call, but nobody answered," said Savannah. "We, uh, have something to do in the Digital World..." She glanced at Tithonia's mother. 

"It's okay, she's safe," said Tithonia, stroking Mulemon's back. "What is it?" 

Zach explained about Hydramon and departing on the following weekend. Tithonia and her mother listened, and when he finished, Tithonia said, "Sure, let's do it. Do you mind, Mom?" 

"Just be careful, baby," said Mrs. Harris. "And you two watch out for her." 

"We will," Zach and Savannah chorused. 

They left soon afterward, refusing offers of dinner, and walked down the street to a bus stop. The bench was taken, so they stood nearby and talked in low voices. 

"We have two weeks," said Zach. "I don't even know where Conch Rock is." 

"It wasn't on the weather map," said Savannah. "But I'll bet it's on the coast, with a name like that. Chamelemon got there and back in a week, right?" 

"True--so it must be three days away, at least," said Zach, thrusting his hands in his pockets and looking sullen as a couple walked by. "Maybe we could find a node near there." 

"Maybe," said Savannah, frowning. "I donno, Zach, so far it's all too easy. We have a date and a guide--so what do we have to do, walk up and ask politely if he'll let us kill him?" 

A man nearby stared at them, then inched away. 

"It might be that simple," said Zach. "Viruses always have people after them, don't they? Maybe he gets challenged all the time." 

"And maybe he doesn't. Zach, what happens if we go out there and get killed?" 

"The Programmer wouldn't let it happen," said Zach without thinking. 

Savannah snickered. "What?" 

"Oh--" Zach shook his head. "I sound just like Spikemon. What I mean is, we'll win because our digimon can digivolve up to ultimate now. By the way, what does Hissmon's champion look like?" 

"I'll draw you a picture when we get home," said Savannah. "A really, really big snake with front legs." 

"That's original." 

"Hey, if not for him, Thrashmon would have got you. Don't laugh." 

"I wasn't laughing, I was coughing." 

"Sure." 

Then the bus pulled up, and the two rode home, looking forward to dinner. 


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17 

_Friends are sometimes boring, but enemies-never.   
-Mason Cooley_

After dinner Savannah took a plate of scraps to her room for Hissmon. She snapped on the light and saw him at the window, weaving to and fro like a swaying pendulum. His glowing red eyes reflected in the glass. "Hissmon?" she said, setting down the plate. "Are you okay?" He turned and hissed at her, and she froze. He was not himself when his eyes glowed. "It's me, Savannah," she said. "I brought you some dinner." 

He hissed at her again, fangs exposed. "Sstay away. Perilous, perilous to approach, stay away." 

She backed slowly toward the door, heart pounding. He had never threatened her before, not even in his red-eye moods. But before she reached the door, the glow left his eyes and he drooped with a long, hissing sigh. "Savannah!" he said. "Are you okay? Did I hurt you?" 

"No," she said, keeping still. "You scared me." 

"Sorry, sorry," he said, slithering to the floor and flowing up to her. "I don't know what's happening, it happens more and more." He reared up, tongue flickering anxiously, and she stooped down, feeling a little better. 

"Are you schizophrenic?" 

"What does that mean?" said the snake. 

"It means you ... you have alternate personalities," she replied, reaching to stroke him, then hesitating. 

"Perhaps I do. Perhaps--" He broke off and swiveled his head away as if ashamed. "Perhaps I shouldn't be your partner anymore." 

"Don't say that!" said Savannah, stroking him at last. "Just--just don't do that anymore." 

"Something happens," said Hissmon, flicking his tongue toward his dinner. "There's something in the Digital World that keeps grabbing ahold of me." He crawled toward the plate, and Savannah put it on the floor for him. 

She sat and watched him eat. "Would you feel like fighting Hydramon?" 

He froze and fixed an eye on her. "Hydramon? What do we want with him?" 

"Zach thinks we need to take him out." 

"He's a mega, if you didn't know." 

"I know. Zach's afraid Hydramon will attack him again." 

"Oh." Hissmon began eating and didn't speak for a while. Savannah watched him, wondering what triggered his aggressive mood swings. 

"I'm going to get on the computer. Will you be okay?" 

"Yes, of course," said the snake. 

Savannah flicked on her computer and sat down in front of it, still glancing uneasily at her partner. 

* * *

The two weeks before the 'battle weekend' crawled by. Tithonia visited Savannah and Zach, and had dinner with Savannah's family one evening when her mother worked late. Rick came around once, and wound up in a nerf-gun fight with Zach and Savannah, with their digimon trying to watch and keep out of sight at the same time. Rick promised to come again. 

On the weekend before the 'big battle', Savannah went to the Digital World with her digivice, grid paper and a pencil. After copying down the weather map from her digivice ("Rain forecasted for tomorrow and the day after."), she returned to her room and began matching up the Digital World with Hilldale, trying to figure out where the nodes connected to the Real World. 

She showed her findings to Zach at school the next day during lunch. Rick and Tithonia appeared a moment later. Rick gave Savannah's paper a glance, then went and sat with his buddies, but Tithonia sat with Zach and Savannah. "What have you got?" 

Savannah slid her paper toward the younger girl. "This is a map of Hilldale verses the Digital World, and they're pretty close. Except over here there's mountains, and in the Digital World it's an ocean." 

"Okay," said Tithonia. "What are these circles?" 

"These are the ranges of the nodes," said Savannah, picking up her paper and showing Zach, who was busy eating. He nodded for her to go on. "We've only used the two southern nodes," Savannah went on, indicating Digiforum and Vinegarden. "If we went to north Hilldale and used a computer, it would set us down near Chipset, or maybe even further north. Anyway, it would save us a walk." 

Zach looked at her map. Their school was located in the forest near Digiforum. He would be sitting in the woods in the Digital World, if he could see it. It was an odd feeling. 

"There's an Internet cafe up here," said Tithonia, pointing to the northern areas of the map. "We used to live up there, and I went to the cafe a lot." 

"Good," said Zach. "We can all go up there this weekend." 

"Maybe," muttered Savannah. When they looked at her, she said, "We haven't been attacked since Thrashmon, and I feel like we're underestimating Hydramon. What if this is all a trap?" 

"How could they know?" said Zach. "We've hardly been in the Digital World since Thrashmon--there's no way the viruses could know what we're planning." 

Savannah pushed her tray aside. "Still, we should be careful." 

"Sure," said Tithonia. "We should always be careful. See you guys, I have physics." She made a face and departed. 

Zach leaned close to Savannah. "Are you trying to scare us? Because it won't work." 

"No," she muttered, toying with her fork. "I just think it'll be harder than we think to kill this guy." 

* * *

But the first part of the plan went well. Saturday arrived, and Zach told his mother he was spending the weekend with friends. Suddenly he longed to tell her the truth and explain all about digimon, but he knew she wouldn't understand. Instead he gave her a hug and went to his room to pack. 

Spikemon was under the bed, and pounced on Zach's feet as he walked by. Zach jumped, and Spikemon laughed. 

"You creep," said Zach, looking under his bed. "Come out, we're leaving soon." 

Spikemon obediently wriggled out and jumped up on the bed. "I just can't wait to fight someone! It's boring hanging out in your room." 

"Just be careful," said Zach. He bucked Chamelemon's shield generator around his waist and pulled his shirt down over it. "There, all set. I wish the others had one of these." 

"It wouldn't work for them," said Spikemon, flopping on his belly. "None of them believe it'd work." 

Zach looked at him. "What?" 

"It's a faith shield," said Spikemon, looking bored. "You have to believe in it for it to work. That's why it doesn't cover your back, because when you use the shield you're not supposed to retreat." 

"Oh." Zach thought about this as he loaded his backpack. "Does it work in the real world?" 

"I don't know, try it." 

Zach flipped on his belt pack, and nothing happened. "I guess not." 

"It'll work if you believe it works," said Spikemon. "I never wanted one--I like offense, not defense." 

"What if defense is your only weapon?" said Zach. "I have that new level, you know." 

"You're a human," said Spikemon. "You weren't meant for fighting against digimon." 

"Too bad the kid who died in the Digital World didn't have one." 

Spikemon didn't answer, but he looked thoughtful. 

The ride up to north Hilldale went smoothly. Zach and Savannah met Rick and Tithonia at the little Internet cafe, which was all but empty. It was the work of three minutes to find a computer screen and open a digiport. 

That was where things began to go wrong. 

They entered the Digital World on the top of a low cliff overlooking the sea. The sky was overcast, turning the sea black, and a cold wind bit into their clothes. The Digidestined had only seen the Digital World's good weather, and it was a shock to see it in the midst of a storm. 

Spikemon pointed along the coast and said, "That's Conch Rock." Towering into the cloudy sky was a perfect replica of a conch shell made of stone, its curved lip open to the wind and long points protruding like horns. As the wind blew over its mouth, it made a deep, mournful trumpet sound. Every time it sounded, Zach's heart began to race. He had never heard anything so frightening. 

They received another shock as they began walking toward the rock. The ground was littered with small round things Zach thought were stones until Rick swore. "Look at these! Who did this?" Zach, Savannah and Tithonia looked around, and their four digimon panicked. 

The ground was littered with the bodies and broken eggs of young digimon. Their liquid eyes were lifeless, and fur and feathers fluttered in the wind. But they had not dissolved into data. 

Savannah realized the implications of this first. She whipped out her digivice and pressed buttons. "Digiport unavailable," she whispered. She looked at the others. "The node's blocked or something. These digimon can't regenerate, and we can't get home." 

"But how could we get here?" said Tithonia, turning white and gripping Mulemon's short mane. 

"You can't block them, silly," said Frogmon, who was the calmest of the group. "You can block input, but not output. We can get in fine, we just can't get out." 

"So what do we do?" said Rick. 

"Go on," said Zach, clenching his teeth to keep them from chattering. "It's what we came to do, right?" He turned his head. "You guys hear something?" 

"Yeah," said Tithonia. "There's a crab on the beach down there waving to us." 

"Oh, that's a Crabmon," said Hissmon. He had slithered into the shelter of a large stone to escape from the wind. "He's a data type." 

"I'll go!" exclaimed Spikemon, who couldn't wait to get away from the dead digimon. He plunged down the cliff in a shower of dirt and a moment later was talking to the crab. Then he turned and beckoned with a paw. 

"It's okay," said Zach. "Let's go." 

The cliffs blocked the wind, and they could hear the roar of the surf. The Crabmon was about five feet long and very nervous. "Get down, come close!" he called, waving his pinchers. "You'll be seen up there!" When the Digidestined had come close, he said, "We've been waiting for you. Are you going to retake our home from Him?" 

"Hydramon?" said Zach. "Yes, we've come to stop him." 

"Come with me," said the crab, and scuttled sideways to the base of the cliffs. He twisted a stick of driftwood, and a door opened in the cliff. He beckoned for them to enter, and stood guard until they were all inside. 

Inside was a cave with a pool of water inside. Light filtered in through the pool and illuminated the cave with dim blue. Aside from Crabmon, there were three lobsters inside who would have looked fierce had they not been so frightened. They crawled away from the Digidestined and huddled against the far wall, antennae twitching. The Crabmon looked around the cave as if he expected it to collapse. "They've found us once before," he muttered. "Can't afford to have it happen again. Chamelemon?" 

The orange lizard walked out of a tunnel mouth, carrying Base. He was a shadow of his former self--his skin hung in limp folds over his skeleton, and his eyes were sunken. 

"Okay," said Spikemon, "if you don't have DCP, what do you have?" 

"Mind your own business," snapped Chamelemon. 

On his shoulder, the baseball bat said, "He's really sick, you guys. Valiant, but sick. Hey Zach, how's my man?" 

"Good," said Zach, although he was feeling worse with every passing moment. The atmosphere of terror in the cave was contagious. 

"There's a passage back here," said Chamelemon. "It leads into the stronghold, and it's too small for Hydramon and his lackeys to go through. Have you got your digivices?" 

The Digidestined nodded. 

"Good," said Chamelemon, "because Hydramon does, too. Follow me." He padded into the shadows, and the group followed. 

"What do you mean he has a digivice?" whispered Tithonia. 

"He does," said Chamelemon over his shoulder. "Remember the one that was stolen? He had it set to block the node, which means he won't die, ever. Quiet now, sounds carry." 

They crept along, and the walls narrowed until they could touch them on either side. The stone was beaded with moisture, and the sand underfoot was damp. They walked for ten minutes, shuffling, bumping into each other, and keeping tabs on their digimon. The digimon sniffed and peered ahead, trying to see through the darkness. After a while they heard the muffled moaning of the Conch Rock. They were coming up on it from inside. 

They saw a blue-green light up ahead, and a moment later came to a large cavern with an enormous glowing crystal in the ceiling. The walls were a marbled green, and softened by years of flowing water. At the far end of the cave was another passage spiraling upwards like a wormhole in the stone. Their footsteps echoed. 

"Quiet," said Chamelemon, halting. His skin changed to the green of the room. "Stay here," he whispered. "Something's not right." The room was empty, but the lizard began to creep around its perimeter, keeping close to the wall. The Digidestined watched him. 

Frogmon hopped close to Rick's ankle. "There is something wrong," he whispered. 

Rick bent down. "What is it? Tripwires or something?" 

Frogmon's bulging eyes roamed the cave. "I don't know. There is an enemy here, but..." 

Spikemon moved up, followed by Mulemon. "You smell it, too?" he murmured to Frogmon. 

"Yes," said Mulemon, ears twitching. "This room, it's wrong. Look at the stalactites on the ceiling. See how those two are cut in the middle and continue further down?" 

The three gazed at the ceiling. 

"I see it," whispered Frogmon. "Hang back, all of you. Rick and I will handle it." 

"What?" whispered Rick. 

"Call Chamelemon back," said Frogmon, "and digivolve me, quick." 

Nearby, Savannah was checking her digivice, and suddenly breathed an exclamation. "Oh my gosh. It's huge!" 

Rick jammed his data stick into his digivice, and at the same time yelled, "Chamelemon, get back here, now!" His voice echoed off the cavern walls, and Frogmon was enveloped in the glowing sphere of a digivolve. At the same time, the cavern in front of them rippled, and they realized that it was filled with an enormous digimon who had been invisible. But it was not Hydramon. 

It was a scorpion the size of a semi truck, and its shimmering exoskeleton bent the light into blue and green flecks. Each of its eight legs ended in a sharp blade, its pinchers were like enormous scissors, and its arched tail had a giant shining lance on the tip. 

Chamelemon doubled back and ran toward them, and the scorpion lashed its tail at him, striking the rock with a terrific clang. The other Digidestined reached for their data sticks, but Frogmon, now transformed to Bullfrogmon, commanded in a booming voice, "Stay back! This battle is for Rick and I alone!" 

The others looked at him and Rick, then backed into the tunnel mouth, looking dubious. Rick looked at his partner. "It is?" 

Bullfrogmon looked the same as Frogmon, but had three fins on his back, and two curled horns on his head. This made him look comical, but Rick wasn't laughing. "Go on then, attack him." 

The frog hopped toward the scorpion, which again lashed its tail at the fleeing Chamelemon. Chamelemon shrieked, tumbled to one side, and kept running. 

"Hey you," called Bullfrogmon, "why don't you pick on a digimon your own level?" Scorpionmon peered down at him with close-set insect eyes as Chamelemon dove into the tunnel with the Digidestined. "You're only a champion, frog," said the scorpion through the clicking of its mandibles. "How do you think you'll win a battle with me?" 

"Simple strategy," said Bullfrogmon. "Pressure Geyser!" He thumped the rock three times with his back feet. At once there was a rumbling sound, and the stone beneath Scorpionmon broken open. A jet of boiling water blasted up underneath him and scorched his tender abdomen. 

"Whoa," breathed Rick, watching. He had never seen Bullfrogmon's attacks, and was still wondering how a champion could defeat an ultimate. 

Bullfrogmon seemed to read his thoughts. "He's desert and I'm marsh. He doesn't like water. Look out!" 

Rick dodged to one side as Scorpionmon's bladed tail struck the floor where he had been standing. Scorpionmon's belly was burned, and he was furious. He crawled toward them, his metal feet making a racket on the stone floor, his pincher-claws open. He slashed at Rick to force him back, then whirled on Bullfrogmon. "I'm going to kill you first!" 

Rick found himself behind Scorpionmon, out of sight of his partner. He glanced toward the others. "Throw me the bat!" he hollered. There was a brief scuffle, and then Zach flung Base toward him. The bat bounced once, and then Rick caught it and gripped the handle. 

"Hey there," said Base. "Ever play baseball?" 

"A little," said Rick. "Any advice?" 

"Swing low," said Base. "His sensitive belly is even more sensitive right now." 

Rick ducked under the scorpion's tail and aimed a blow at the spot where one of the back legs joined to the body. There was a snap and the leg curled up, the prism of the exoskeleton dimming. Rick dodged out. "Bullfrogmon!" 

Scorpionmon turned to face Rick, green slime dripping from his four jaws. "Maybe I should worry about you, human." He swept out a claw and pinned Rick to the wall with the back of a pincher. 

"Ooo, this is bad," said Base, still in Rick's fist. 

"Frogmon!" Rick wailed as the scorpion raised its other pincher with its deadly blades. He saw Bullfrogmon hop into view, looking small and tame beside the monstrous bug. Bullfrogmon squatted on the floor and closed his eyes. 

"Wake up and help me!" Rick yelled as Scorpionmon swiped at his head and missed. 

"He can't help you," growled Scorpionmon, his body pulsing air into himself. "He's only a champion." 

For some reason Rick thought of the stricken look on Zach's face the day Rick had made fun of his dinosaur drawing. He now knew how that felt, except there was no one to help Zach. Weaker people could not fight back. Their only weapon was their perseverance. 

As if he had read his mind, Base said, "He can't hurt you from this angle, he's too awkward. Wait." 

Rick waited, his heart thundering against the tough, plastic-like claw that held him pinned. Why did Bullfrogmon just sit there? Had he given up? Persevere. Wait. Something will happen. The situation will change-- 

Bullfrogmon sprang straight up in the air and cried, "Antivirus Quarantine!" 

The world spun. Rick struck the floor and lay with his hands over his head as the cave spun out of control and a hot wind whipped his body. He heard shouts from the other Digidestined and a triumphant yell from Bullfrogmon, and then everything stopped. Slowly Rick lifted his head. 

Where Scorpionmon had been was now an in-training digimon with a spike on its head, fastened to the ground by three iron clamps. Beside it lay Frogmon, once more in rookie form, his legs splayed out. Rick jumped up and ran to him. The frog rolled an eye at him. 

"You took him out!" exclaimed Rick, staring. "That was, wow, that was really, I mean--" 

"All digimon have a one-hit knockout attack," whimpered the frog, "but they're only supposed to use them in mega. I think I hurt myself." 

The other Digidestined ran up and praised Rick and Frogmon, and gazed at what had been Scorpionmon, fastened to the floor. "I'll get you for this!" the former monster was snarling in a shrill voice. "And if I can't get you, Hydramon will! Just you wait! He'll eat you all! Ha ha!" 

Hissmon looked at the in-training, and his eyes flashed red. The little digimon cowered and fell silent. 

"Go on ahead," said Rick, kneeling beside his flattened partner. "I'll come on when he can walk again. Here, take the bat." He handed the baseball bat to Chamelemon, who smiled shyly. 

Zach, Savannah and Tithonia looked at him, then slowly nodded. "If you hear a fight, hurry up," said Savannah. "We need the team together." 

Rick nodded and didn't reply. The rest of the Digidestined crossed the now-empty cavern and climbed the ascending tunnel on the far side. 


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18 

_This is not the enemy   
Flesh and blood have been deceived   
When we've moved beyond the anger   
We will see   
We've got to rescue the prisoner   
Rescue the prisoner   
-Rescue the Prisoner, Twila Paris_

As they ascended the winding passage, the Digidestined saw holes bored into the rock on either side, barred with metal, and each hole contained a prisoner. They looked at the Digidestined with frightened eyes, but did not make a sound. Only one of them dared speak. "Careful," he whispered, winding cat-paws around the bards. "Hydramon's waiting at the top, he's trying to trap you. Please, save us from him!" 

"We will," said Tithonia, looking in at the cat. "Once we take him down, we'll come back for you." 

The cat laid his paws on one of her hands and whispered, "Thank you." 

As they continued climbing, Spikemon and Mulemon took the lead, treading lightly and straining their senses for danger. Hissmon brought up the rear, his eyes flickering red as if he were waging some battle with himself. 

The passage spiraled higher and higher, and the wailing of Conch Rock grew louder. The digimon they saw in the cells were more subdued, and some were ill. The air took on the faint smell of rotting meat. Spikemon growled deep in his throat. "We're close." 

They rounded the final bend and the passage opened into a tall cavern, smaller than the one down below, but with smoothly curving walls of a pinkish stone. Covering the floor was a tangled mass of necks, limbs and heads they realized was Hydramon. His skin was sleek blue and had no scales, and on the back of each neck was a plume of red spines. The whole mass gently rose and fell as it breathed, and its numerous eyes were closed. A claw twitched. They had caught Hydramon napping. 

Or so it seemed. As they stared in bewilderment at the sinuous necks and narrow heads, they saw one head was awake. Its red eye was fixed on them, unblinking, and watchful. 

"Savannah, Tithonia," said Zach softly, "Digivolve, now." 

The awake head reared away from its fellows and curved overhead, its red frill standing erect like a mohawk. "Surprise," it hissed. "No hydra sleeps without an eye open." At once other eyes opened in the tangled mass, and four other heads reared up, each with red eyes, a tall frill, and long, fish-like teeth. 

Zach jammed a data stick into his digivice and handed his second one to Savannah. Tithonia inserted her own two, but before Savannah could fit Zach's stick into her digivice, Hissmon sprang away from her feet, eyes glowing. 

"Fiend!" he hissed shrilly. He slithered toward the hydra, but the monster smiled with all five heads. 

"I eat rookies like you, reptile." One of its heads lashed out, caught Hissmon in the middle of his body, and gave him a violent shake. Then it flung him away, and Hissmon slithered to the floor and lay still, nearly bitten in two. 

"Hissmon!" cried Savannah. Sobbing, she backed into the tunnel, clutching her digivice. All the menus had become unavailable, which could only mean Hissmon was dead. The only reason he did not vaporize was because the node was jammed. 

Zach, however, was too panicked to worry about compassion. "Give me the stick!" he said, snatching his extra data stick out of her hand. He jammed it into his digivice and watched as Spikemon went to ultimate for the first time. 

From Carnomon, he became Thornmon. His head was armored, his horns became hooked at the ends, and his forearms encased in metal and sprouted long, dagger-like claws. 

Nearby, Mulemon had become MetalChargermon. Like Thornmon, she increased in size, and red armor replaced her medieval silks. She stamped her hooves and brayed a challenge to Hydramon. 

"Ultimates, how nice," said Hydramon, his heads weaving up and down and side to side. "Electric Javelin!" His heads lashed forward, and the crest on each formed a glowing red spear that flashed toward the Digidestined. Thornmon sliced two of the javelins out of the air with his claws. MetalChargermon took the other three in her opened wings, and both of them returned to the ground panting with pain. 

Hydramon sized them up through narrowed eyes, then did it again. And again. 

Savannah took no notice of the warring digimon, or of the fact that Hydramon had the upper hand. Her eyes were fixed on Hissmon, lying so still, and she was crying, sitting on the floor. 

Chamelemon crept up to her, trembling. "Savannah, if your partner is down, you must get away from here. There is no one to protect you." 

"He's gone," she sobbed, holding up her digivice to show him the dead menus. "He attacked before I could digivolve him, his eyes were glowing, he didn't know what he was doing--" 

"Savannah, you must get away from here," repeated the lizard. "You can't do anything more here." 

"Oh yes I can," said Savannah. She snatched Base out of his hand and jumped to her feet. "I'm going to kill him!" 

"Savannah!" cried Chamelemon, scurrying after her. "Don't go in there, they'll kill you!" 

She strode into the cavern, not listening, face set like stone. 

"Savannah!" Zach said as she marched past him. "What are you doing? Savannah!" 

She broke into a run toward the hydra, swinging Base. 

"Hoo boy, this is bad," said the bat. "Wait a minute, let's talk about this, he's a mega and you're a human! Savannah! Hello!" 

Up close, Hydramon was enormous. The only part of him she could reach was one of his forelegs, so she charged that and used Base's three-strike attack on it. To her amazement it had no effect. 

A head curled down to her level, the size of a car. "I'm a mega, fool," it hissed, fanning her with stinking icy breath. "Do you think a real-world artifact can harm me?" 

Savannah was too angry to be frightened. She threw Base as hard as she could, and struck one red eye dead in the center. 

All five heads went berserk, hissing, writhing and snapping in frantic pain. Savannah had the sense to sprint out of the way as Thornmon and MetalChargermon attacked simultaneously, one with a fireball barrage and the other with a whirlwind. She retrieved Base as she ran, and spun about, ready to attack again. 

"She's lost her mind," said Zach. "Tithonia, get her out of there, I'll keep him distracted." 

"I can't leave my partner!" Tithonia shouted back, gripping her digivice and white with fear. "Chamelemon, you go get her!" 

Chamelemon was standing back in the tunnel, terrified. Now that it had come down to it, he was afraid to challenge a mega. Hissmon was a rookie, and look what had happened to him. Chamelemon's sense of disconnection had grown worse. Not only had he lost his attacks, he had lost his strength as well. He doubted he would make it to Savannah. One of those angry heads would snap him up on the way. "I'm going to die," he whimpered, crouching on the floor. "Either way, I'm going to die." He was a bit of meaningless data, cut adrift from the Digital World, yet still in it. 

He watched as Savannah charged at Hydramon again. Three heads pounced on her. There was a second of confusion and flashes of light, then the heads parted and she was lying on the floor in a heap. 

Zach cried her name with such anguish that Chamelemon was moved to action. If he was going to die, he might as well die trying to help Savannah. He bolted out into the cavern, and to his amazement he reached her unscathed. As he bent over her she stirred and lifted her head. 

"Help me," she said. She had been stunned, and could not get up. Chamelemon lacked the strength to lift her. He crouched beside her, panting, trying to watch all five of Hydramon's heads at once. 

"Chamelemon," she said, and he looked down at her. "Take Base," she said, handing the bat to him. "When he gets a chance he's going to polish me off, and you try to blind him." 

"Right." Chamelemon licked his dry lips and extended a hand to her. She took it. 

Just as in Vinegarden, as soon as Savannah touched him Chamelemon was back in the Digital World and possessed all of his attacks. He was also ravenously hungry, such as he had not been in weeks. This time she felt the change, too, and her eyes widened. 

Two heads whipped down, their jaws open and teeth flashing. "Hold my tail!" Chamelemon commanded, curling his tail around her hand and gripping Base. "Chameleon Blast!" His white energy attack went up the throat of one, and he sent one of Base's attacks into the eye of the other. 

The hydra shrieked with all five heads as the one with the lacerated throat flopped to the floor and was still. "Watch out!" cried Chamelemon as the remaining heads came down upon them, seeking to tear and kill. One of the heads sank its teeth into Savannah before Chamelemon could defend her. 

The chameleon saw red. His anger was sudden and more powerful than any emotion he had ever felt in his life. He leaped into the air with an enraged scream, he and Base together, and swung the bat at the base of the head's skull. As the baseball bat came down, its metal took on the sharpness of Chamelemon's wrath, and sliced the head off the neck. 

Chamelemon had dragged Savannah to a safe distance before he knew what had happened. She was bleeding from a set of bitemarks across her torso, but Chamelemon had acted so swiftly that Hydramon had not had time to bite deeper. She clung to him like a drowning person, half-crying with pain. He knelt over her, murmuring soothing words, and caught sight of Base. The baseball bat was now a sword, and his face grinned from the hilt. 

"We rock, Chamelemon. We totally rock." 

The digivice dropped from Savannah's pocket, and Chamelemon picked it up. He pressed it into her hand, and as he did, the screen flickered. Savannah looked at it and saw it was scanning for a partner, and there was a line of gibberish, just as there had been when she entered the Digital World. Then the line cleared and was replaced with 'Chamelemon'. 

Two data sticks flickered into existence on the ground beside them. Savannah smiled through her tears. One of the sticks had a small chip clipped to it, and they both knew what it did. She slipped them into her digivice. 

Chamelemon warp-digivolved straight to Mega. 

* * *

Hydramon only had three heads remaining, and those three were insane with rage and pain. He charged at Zach and Tithonia's digimon, dragging his two lifeless heads. Thornmon and MetalChargermon danced out of the way, and Thornmon attacked from behind, leaping on the hydra's smooth back like a predatory dinosaur. Tithonia and Zach sprinted across the cave, out of the way. It was in the midst of this confusion that Chamelemon digivolved. 

"Who's digivolving?" said Tithonia, looking bewildered. "Hissmon's still over there!" 

"It's Chamelemon," said Zach, squinting. "Look at him now!" 

Chamelemon had become Knifemon, a tall orange lizard dressed in a black ninja outfit with katanas crossed across his back. But in his hands he held Base, who was now a flashing steel sword. 

"Great jumping gosh almighty," said Zach, which was a curse he saved for special occasions. "We've won now." 

Knifemon moved like lightning, and lent his sword to the battle. But the three digimon combined were hardly a match for Hydramon, who blocked their attacks and retaliated with mind-blowing speed. A fog of data particles was forming around his damaged heads as well, for he was healing himself. 

Tithonia ran to Savannah, who was leaning against the cave wall, watching the battle. "Are you okay?" 

"I'll be fine," said Savannah. "I've been thinking. We won't be able to kill Hydramon because the node's jammed. You don't think that's where the stolen digivice is, do you?" 

Tithonia nodded. "Chamelemon said something about that, didn't he? So where's the node?" 

"Nearby, maybe around where we came in," said Savannah, coughing and holding her chest. "Somebody needs to find the digivice." 

"You're so smart," said Tithonia, squeezing her hand. "I'll tell Zach." She dashed to Zach and passed on the information. 

"You go, then," he said to her. "Chargermon can fly, and you two will travel faster." 

"In Greek mythology, Hercules burned the stumps of the hydra's heads," Tithonia told him. "They kept growing back. Have Spikemon do that." 

"Right." 

Tithonia called MetalChargermon, and they galloped around the spiral of the Conch Rock's mouth and out into the open air. Zach whistled to Thornmon. "Burn his heads!" 

"They're not easy to hit!" Thornmon roared. "Knifemon, hold one still!" 

Knifemon jumped on a bleeding stump and held it down, fighting Hydramon's violent thrashing, and Thornmon roared, "Atomic Fireball!" 

Zach covered his face with his hands, and it wasn't from the heat of the flames. 

The fire cauterized the stump, and that head ceased to heal itself. The remaining three heads bit and tore at Knifemon, who sat perfectly still, letting them tear at his gear and skin. Then he slashed like lightning with his sword, and cut off another head in mid-bite. Thornmon repeated the cauterization process. It was a grim, violent business, but Hydramon was slowing. 

"This ... can't be happening," his remaining two heads panted in unison. The two pairs of eyes fastened on Thornmon. "Black Haze!" 

At once Thornmon stumbled back and stood still, moving in such a way that showed he had been blinded. 

"As for you," panted the heads, looking at Knifemon, "we've always hated you. Even thought you lacked attacks, you've always been a liability. And now ... now it is too late." 

Knifemon lopped off another head and the remaining head hung low, breathing four times as much as usual. "Kill me," whispered the hydra through its long teeth. "You'll never defeat Him. His will outrun you, outthink you, outplan you, outshine you. When I die ... He will find you Himself." 

Thornmon shook his head as the blindness wore off, and he and Knifemon made short work of the rest of Hydramon. 

Outside, Tithonia was on MetalChargermon's broad back, and the great donkey was flying around the coast. Tithonia's digivice was set to Tracking Mode, and she was trying to decipher the colored dots. The weather was improving, for the wind had dropped and the clouds were breaking up. 

"A digivice!" said Tithonia. "That way, on the cliffs. Down! Lower!" 

"Who's the one flying, here?" said MetalChargermon, laying back her ears. "I can't get that close without landing." 

"Then land," said Tithonia. "We're right on top of it." They landed on the rocky cliff top, and MetalChargermon folded her wings as Tithonia slid off. "It's right here, we're so close..." She peered at the rocks. "Oh, there it is!" Two tiny wires protruded from the ground, and wired to them was the old violet digivice. Tithonia pulled it free of the wires and flipped it off. 

At once every dead digimon in the vicinity vaporized, and their data poured into the node. In the cave, Hydramon faded like smoke. Savannah looked toward the corner where Hissmon had been, then looked away. He was gone, too. "I'll never see him again," she thought. 

A moment later there came the patter of many feet from the downward passage, and rookie digimon of all kinds ran into the cave, shouting and singing, "We're free! He's dead, he's dead!" They ran out of the conch and back again, rejoicing. Behind them came Rick and Frogmon, Frogmon hopping wearily, but both beaming. They had been releasing prisoners. 

Tithonia rode in on MetalChargermon, carrying the recovered digivice and grinning. The Digidestined converged on Savannah, and they all exchanged glad hugs, removing their data sticks so their partners could join in. They slapped Chamelemon on the back and knocked him around, and admired Base, who was so proud of himself he could have burst. The freed digimon ran up to them and thanked them over and over for their freedom. Some of them noticed Savannah's injury, and they insisted upon taking her to a village a little below Conch Rock where they kept their repair data. The Digidestined allowed themselves to be marched off. 

Conchtown had been abandoned for weeks, ever since Hydramon had marched off the inhabitants, but he had not bothered with the town itself. Before long it was bustling with activity as doors were opened, food was checked, and lights turned on. All the buildings were patterned after shells, and it was marvelous to simply stroll through it. The Digidestined and their partners were begged to stay for a 'thank you' feast, and they agreed. 

Savannah was whisked away to a windowless house like a scallop, where she was placed in a warm bath and entertained by a set of female digimon, and hardly noticed as they tended her wounds. By the time they helped her out of the tub, the bitemarks were gone. 

Chamelemon was skulking outside, waiting for her, and he raced up to her as she emerged from the scallop. "Savannah! Are you better now?" 

"I think so," she said, looking at him. She hated to admit it, but he was cuter than Hissmon. 

He held out Base the sword. "These digimon want to give me a sheath for him, but they want you to be there. Will you come?" 

"Sure." She followed him down the winding street, looking at the various spirals and sea-shapes of the houses, and wishing Hissmon could have been there. 

Zach, Tithonia and Rick were waiting with their partners on the back of a giant red abalone shell. The steps up to the top were made of polished mother of pearl that gleamed like a rainbow in the sun. Savannah and Chamelemon climbed the steps and stood with their friends. 

A small scaly horse-like creature hopped up to them and bowed. "I am Horsedramon," it said. "The human called Rick Sterling defeated Scorpionmon and released us from our prisons. For that, I give his digimon Frogmon this instant revive." There was a murmur among the assembled crowd of digimon as Horsedramon handed Rick a flat red wafer. Horsedramon bowed and retreated. 

An octopus-like creature wriggled forward. "Tithonia disabled the ancient digivice," it burbled, "and thereby released our brethren into the node. May they regenerate without reformatting." The watching crowd repeated this like a benediction. The octopus went on, "To her I give this Oystermon pearl. It is worth thousands of zip coins." It handed her a white pearl the size of a baseball, and Tithonia blushed crimson as she took it. 

The same Crabmon who had aided them scuttled forward, carrying an ornate leather sheath in its claws. "Savannah the Digidestined sacrificed her health and her partner for the defense of her team. May he regenerate without reformatting." 

"May he regenerate without reformatting," repeated the crowd. 

"To her I present this sheath for her partner's sword. May you only draw the sword in gravest need." Chamelemon took the sheath and slid Base in, who fit perfectly. 

"Hey, I like this," said Base. "Kind of like wearing clothes!" 

Last of all, a seagull waddled up to Zach and bowed. "Zach led the attack on Hydramon, and he and his partner never gave up, even in the midst of a distortion." 

Zach shifted his weight, embarrassed. 

"To him," continued Gullmon, "I present this pair of goggles. May they defend your eyes from energy attacks." 

Zach took the goggles, looked at them, then put them on, sliding them up on his forehead. "Thanks," he said. 

The surrounding crowd broke into cheers and ushered the Digidestined from the abalone shell. They herded them down to the seashore, where a vast bonfire and picnic were being prepared. The digimon were anxious to see them eat, and the Digidestined were happy to oblige them. 

As afternoon wore toward evening and the bonfire was lit by an elaborate dance from the fire-types, Zach slipped away. He strolled down the beach away from Conchtown, feeling the sand beneath his feet and a wind from the ocean lift his hair. He wanted to be alone for a while and think about the day's events. It had all happened so fast! And they had defeated Hydramon after all. Thinking about it, he wondered if it had been too easy. Hydramon all but surrendered at the end, claiming there was another. His flesh crawled. Another digimon, even stronger than Hydramon? 

The sounds of the picnic faded behind him into the wash of the surf. Zach spied a rock several feet above the sand and climbed it. From there he sat and stared out at the ocean, watching the sun sink into its orange reflection. Birds were diving far out on the water. 

After a while he glanced back up the beach and saw Spikemon waddling along, following Zach's footprints. He followed them to the rock, then looked up and smiled. Zach waved two fingers, and Spikemon climbed up on the rock beside him. "Pretty, isn't it?" said the dinosaur, gazing out to sea and inhaling the salty air. 

"Yeah." 

The sun was a red disk now, and was slipping below the horizon. They watched until the final sliver had vanished, and the wind picked up, fanning their faces. 

"I can't believe it's over," muttered Zach. 

Spikemon looked at him. "What is?" 

"This. Our quest to get back the digivice. We defeated Hydramon. We won, and it's over now." 

"Oh, it's never over," said Spikemon, settling himself on the top of the rock. "There's always a virus popping up somewhere. It'll be like that until the Programmer upgrades the Digital World and erases their bad data." 

"If your Programmer is so powerful," said Zach, "then why do you have viruses?" 

Spikemon eyed him. "You think viruses are born viruses?" 

"No, but--" Zach stopped. "They aren't?" 

"The first digimon were data types," said Spikemon, looking at the ocean. "But there were some who wanted the power of the Digital World for themselves. There's a lot of power here, if you know how to use it." Zach nodded, and his partner went on, "When those digimon started amassing power, they started killing off other digimon. And when a digimon starts killing like that, it goes to their heads and corrupts their data. They were the first viruses, and vaccines were made to fight them." 

"So viruses made themselves," said Zach. He shivered in the wind and hugged himself. "I wish there was a Programmer in our world." 

"There has to be one," said Spikemon. "Where did your world come from?" 

"The big bang," said Zach. "Then the universe sort of, you know, evolved into what it is now." 

"You sound like Hissmon," said Spikemon. "There's data in your world. It's a different kind, but it translates from here to there and back. What are you made of in your world?" 

"Cells," said Zach. "Or maybe DNA. That's a kind of code." 

"Okay so you do have data," said Spikemon. "Who programmed it?" 

"It ... I guess it programmed itself." Zach blinked. "Are you saying there's a god or something in my world?" 

"Well, somebody had to program it," said Spikemon. "You might call him a God." 

"I'm freezing," said Zach, who was growing uncomfortable with the conversation. "Let's go back to the fire." 

"Okay." 

He and Spikemon climbed off the rock and walked back across the wet sand, letting the incoming tide lap at their feet. Conch Rock reared up against the dusky sky, a graceful, poised shape that had nothing of the sinister aura of earlier that day. Zach wondered how he had ever found it frightening. "I guess it was because of Hydramon," he thought as they padded toward the bonfire and the frolicking shapes of the digimon. He thought of Hydramon's last words and shook off a cold shudder. "I'm glad the fighting is over now." 


	19. Finale

Chapter 19 

_Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils go smoke, as out of a seething pot or cauldron. _

Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.   
Job 41:19-20, 33-34 

Savannah returned home late Saturday night and crashed into bed. Chamelemon investigated her room before curling up on the foot of her bed, his skin blending with her bedspread. He was warm, while Hissmon had been cold, like a reptile. But she still missed Hissmon, and stuffed her pillow in her mouth to keep from crying. Did Digidestined let their partners die? She thought she knew how the digimon felt when it had let its human partner get killed. 

Tithonia had kept the old violet digivice, and they had decided to return it to the Gigaterra museum the following day. Maybe Savannah would ask them to put up a plaque in Hissmon's memory. She reached down and stroked Chamelemon's head. The chameleon smiled in his sleep and did not stir. Why had he lost his attacks? She would ask him in the morning. 

Savannah awoke hours later with the crystal clear awareness that someone was in her room. 

It was dark outside, and her clock radio read 4 AM. Chamelemon was still asleep at her feet, but there was a rustle and a stirring of the air elsewhere in her room that chilled her blood. She lay perfectly still, hoping the intruder had not noticed she was awake. 

She heard her window slide open and rolled her eyes at it, trying to see the intruder's silhouette without moving her head. There was a dark mass in front of the window, and somehow she knew it was not human. She wanted it to go away, and quickly. She broke out in a fine sweat. 

The dark mass shifted and a pair of burning red eyes fixed on her. They were like Hissmon's eyes, but far too large, and of a different shape. Could it see in the dark? Could it see her looking at it? 

The monster sniffed twice, then turned and climbed out through the window, filling it. She heard it strike the grass outside, and waited until she could no longer hear it, then sat up and roused Chamelemon. "Something was in here," she whispered when he awoke. "Something big." She was shaking. 

Chamelemon sat up and sniffed the air, and even in the darkness she saw his skin change colors several times. "Oh my gosh," he whispered, jumping up and clinging to her. "Oh my gosh!" 

"What was it?" 

"You saw it?" he whispered. "And it didn't attack us? Oh my gosh!" He released her and crawled to the window on all fours, his curled tail held high over his back. He cautiously stood up and looked out the open window, his whole body tense. "This is bad," he whispered, crawling back to her as if the monster were listening. "The thing was an ultimate. Savannah, viruses aren't supposed to be able to get to the real world! This is bad! What could it want?" 

"I don't know," said Savannah, but she thought of Hydramon's attack on Zach, and her stomach tightened. She picked up her cellphone and called Zach's. He never used it, but he kept it plugged in, so it should be on... 

Zach picked up on the third ring. "Huh?" 

"Zach, an ultimate virus just got here through my computer." 

"What? What did you say?" Zach's voice sounded more alert. 

"It was huge, Zach. I'm afraid it might come after you or something. Chamelemon said it must want something." 

Zach breathed an oath. "So there's a virus running around the neighborhood? Hang up, I'm going to call Rick and--" 

Savannah's phone went berserk. It lit up and its screen flashed electronic gibberish. Her clock radio became a mass of scrambled diodes, and her monitor made a high-pitched ringing sound. "What the heck?" she said, looking around. 

Chamelemon looked around, too. "He must have digivolved to Mega." 

Savannah threw on her clothes and snatched up her digivice. Chamelemon grabbed Base, who now remained alive in the real world, and had been sleeping, and they left the house through the window. 

The world was dark and quiet outdoors, and the chilly air was still. It felt like midnight. There was no sign of the mega, but Zach ran out to the street with Spikemon at his heels. "Savannah! Did your electronic stuff go haywire?" 

"Yeah," said Savannah. "We think he digivolved. Did you call the others?" 

"Yeah, I tried," said Zach, noticing his shirt was on backward. "I left a message for Rick, and nobody answered at Tithonia's. Let's go." 

Savannah noticed he was wearing his shield generator. "You first, you've got a shield." 

They jogged down the street and peered both ways at the first intersection. All was quiet in both directions. "How do you hide a mega?" murmured Savannah. 

"If he keeps his head down, we'll never find him," said Zach. "Chamelemon, Spikemon, can you smell him?" 

The lizards sniffed. "The road reeks of him," said Spikemon, wrinkling his nose. "He went straight on. Let's find this loser." 

The four went on, jogging, sniffing, and looking for signs that something large had passed by. There was no trail but the monster's scent, as if it had been careful to harm nothing that might give it away. 

After another ten minutes they came to a wide road with lots of streetlights. The road was empty at that hour, but one of the streetlights was bent and flickering. 

"He crossed," said Chamelemon. 

"He's headed downtown," said Zach. "Savannah, what do we do if he goes downtown? There's no Code Enforcement digimon here!" 

"We'll have to be their representatives," said Savannah, but she looked at Chamelemon with a sick feeling. If she lost her second partner in two days... 

Suddenly two police cars shot by, sirens screaming. In the morning stillness it was unnerving. "I think somebody noticed him," said Zach. 

They hurried on, their digimon running ahead to look and sniff. The scent grew stronger as the suburbs gave way to a commercial district. Most of the stores were closed, but here and there a few lights were on as people did their morning work prior to opening. 

"If he's a virus, why doesn't he rampage through and flatten everything?" said Zach to his partner. 

"This is small fry," said Spikemon, waving to the street. "Who would notice if he destroyed little buildings? He's probably headed for the largest buildings where he can cause the most chaos." 

The sky began to brighten in the east, and a few cars appeared in the streets. Soon Hilldale would be awake, and the Digidestined had not located the mega virus. 

More police cars screeched by in the distance, headed in the same direction as the Digidestined. Spikemon dropped back to trot alongside Zach. "Zach," he said softly, "if I digivolve, it will be the second time in twelve hours. I don't have much energy left." 

Chamelemon overheard this and slowed to walk with the humans. "Ditto," he said. "And what about the others? Nobody can recharge that fast." 

"We're going to get flattened," concluded Spikemon, shaking his head. "And depending on his type, he just might kill us all." 

They rounded a corner and came to a roadblock of orange flashers and pylons set across the road. Two policemen strode up to them. "Sorry kids, this area is closed to all traffic." 

"Let us by, please," said Zach, standing in front of Spikemon. "We--uh--need to get to school." 

"On a Sunday?" said a cop with a smirk. "Just turn around and go back the way you--" 

A trumpeting roar echoed across the city, reverberating off walls and streets. The policemen and Digidestined jumped, and at once Chamelemon and Spikemon were between their partners and danger, teeth bared. 

"You can't go that way," said a policeman, then stared at their digimon. "Harry, look, there's more of them!" 

"Sorry, gotta go," said Chamelemon, and bolted down the street. Savannah, Zach and Spikemon followed. The police did not pursue them, which they thought was odd until they heard sirens as another car moved to intercept them. 

"Wouldn't it be ironic if we got arrested?" said Savannah. Then they turned a corner and stopped, struck dumb. 

Spreading before them were the park-like grounds around the Hilldale commercial district, and a collection of buildings the inhabitants fondly called skyscrapers. Coiled around one of these skyscrapers was a monster like a living Chinese dragon. Its body was long enough to wrap around the building, but it had gleaming silver legs, and a pair of red wings that hung half-open from its back. As they stared, its vast whiskered head arched back and it roared again, a massive, frightening sound that punched the stomach and dented eardrums. They were so stunned by sight and sound that they did not notice the police car pull up behind them. 

Zach felt a hand on his shoulder and whirled with a gasp. A cop stood behind him, looking scared. "Come with us, kids, it's too dangerous here. No one is allowed into this area." 

"We're the only ones who can stop that thing," said Zach. "Don't make us leave, please." 

"Right, kid," said the cop, grabbing his arm. "Come on, get in the car--" 

Zach whipped out his data sticks and jammed them into his digivice. All electronic devices in the area scrambled as Spikemon digivolved to Thornmon. The cop gasped and shrank back as Thornmon snarled down at him. "Leave my partner alone." 

Then the four ran into the parkland, toward the monster, away from roads where more police might intervene. As they ran, Savannah pulled out her own digivice, as she always did, and scanned the dragon. "His name is Komodomon," she panted to Zach. "Mega, of course, but he's a poisonous fire type. All we have is fire, wind and water. Oh, and electricity," she added, as Chamelemon glared at her. "Hissmon might have helped, if I still had him." 

"Fire might work," said Thornmon, eyeing Komodomon, who had not noticed them. "But there won't be much left of this area once I'm through. I wish I were mega!" 

"If wishes were digivices, in-trainings would digivolve," said Chamelemon. "I vote we wait for Rick and Tithonia. They might have some ideas." 

Komodomon roared again, deafening them. As it ceased, Zach said, "He's saying something. Could you understand him?" 

"No," said Savannah, still holding her ears. 

"I did," said Thornmon, who was the only one who had not flinched. "He's calling the Programmer." 

The dragon's head tilted and peered down at them, its red eyes narrowing. Then it smiled, lips peeling back to reveal long white fangs. It shifted its steel claws and stretched its long neck in their direction, uncoiling like a gigantic snake. "Hello," it rumbled, its voice loud enough to understand an acre away. "Nice of you to drop by." 

Thornmon placed himself between Komodomon and the others, and although he was twenty feet tall, he was dwarfed by the dragon. "Keep back." 

Komodomon curved his head to one side and grinned down at the humans. "I've always despised your kind," he growled, his voice as loud as thunder. "Tell me, Savannah, how did it feel to watch your partner die?" 

Chamelemon pressed against her legs. "Don't answer him." 

"I arranged his death," the dragon went on with a smug yet dangerous smile. "Hydramon was merely my agent, and even he had to be eliminated. I knew he could tire you. There is no attack any of you posses that can harm me." 

"You killed Hissmon?" said Savannah softly. 

Somehow the dragon heard her. "I did not kill him--I merely arranged his death. Hydramon was supposed to kill you afterward, but he bungled it." Komodomon's nostrils flared at Chamelemon. "And you are her partner now." 

Chamelemon made a gesture that was meaningless to the humans, but was obviously insulting. 

"You should have died," snarled Komodomon. "After I usurped your role as her partner, you should have died. But you clung to life. You are the one flaw in my plan." 

Savannah stood still, trying to understand what the dragon had said. "You usurped...?" She remembered entering the Digital World and her digivice displaying a line of gibberish as a partner name. It had done it again when Chamelemon became her partner. 

"It was the perfect cover," Komodomon said, lifting his head high in the air. "Compressed into rookie, who would ever suspect the meekest of serpents? The gentle, pacifist Hissmon, whose only giveaway was his bite? I could not compress my venom attack, no matter how I tried." 

"You..." Savannah's mind was a blank. She sensed there was a horrible shock in his words, but she refused to understand it. "You were controlling Hissmon?" 

Komodomon smiled, baring venomous fangs. "I am Hissmon." 

Thornmon, Chamelemon, Zach and Savannah were stunned. They stood, openmouthed, staring at Komodomon. He climbed up on his lofty perch and clung there, wings half-open. "Benign virus, I said! And you fools believed me." 

"But... you fought for me," said Savannah brokenly. The shock was sinking in. 

"Fought for you? Ha!" bellowed the dragon, his voice shaking the ground. "I eliminated each of my own minions when they proved inept! Condormon, Loricamon, Thrashmon, Stranglemon, those poor trusting idiots. Hydramon had his psychic attacks, but he fell for me, too. Faking your own death is not hard in the Digital World." 

"So that's why my attacks went away," growled Chamelemon, turning brick red. "Cutting me off from my intended partner should have killed me." 

Thornmon roared, "I liked you, Hissmon! I trusted you!" 

"You should have trusted your instincts, Spikemon my friend," rumbled Komodomon. "I had the hardest time convincing you, for you were always suspicious of me. But if you tell a lie long enough and loud enough, everyone will believe it." 

Savannah was crying now, hands over her face. It was a betrayal so horrible and so close to her heart that she felt as if part of her had died. "But why?" she wailed. "Why did you do this to me?" 

"Nothing personal," said Komodomon, "but you are a female, and females are easy to deceive. You were one of the first female Digidestined in twenty years, and you were my ticket to the Real World." He reared back and roared again. "Programmer!" 

"Say the word, Zach," snarled Thornmon, baring his teeth under his steel helmet. "Tell me and I'll take him down." 

Zach looked at Savannah, then up at the monstrous dragon. "Wait. I'm going to try calling Rick and Tithonia again." 

Zach had brought along his cell phone, and it was none the worse for being hit with a data storm when the digimon digivolved. He dialed Tithonia's, and again there was no answer. Then he tried Rick's, and got his answering machine again. However, the message on the machine announced, "You've reached Richard Sterling. I can't come to the phone now because I've gone to confront a dragon in the middle of town. Leave a message, will you?" 

"Rick's on his way," said Zach, sliding his phone back into his pocket. "Tithonia might be, I don't know. Should we wait?" 

"No," said Chamelemon, who had been trying to comfort Savannah, and was steadily growing angry. "I can go to mega. If Thornmon and I attack at once, we might be strong enough." Savannah did not speak, but she inserted her data sticks into her digivice. 

Chamelemon grew ten feet all and assumed his ninja guise, holding Base, who exclaimed, "Let's give him heck!" 

Thornmon and Knifemon nodded to each other, and charged toward the dragon. Zach and Savannah watched, eager to see how their partners fared. Thornmon lowered his head and hit one of the dragon's coils head on, driving his horns through the scales and flesh. At the same time, Knifemon leaped in the air and came down blade first, slamming his sword into Komodomon's back. 

Komodomon retaliated with his whole body. He threw his coils out and around, and ducked his head down out of sight. Savannah recognized the gesture as something Hissmon did--he always protected his head when there was danger. For a moment Thornmon and Knifemon were lost from sight. 

"Look at him thrash, maybe they hit something vital," said Zach. 

"No," murmured Savannah. "It's his defense." 

Knifemon leaped briefly into sight, his sword flashing in one hand and a katana in the other. They saw a burst of flame from Thornmon and sensed there was a fight going on, but the trees around them blocked their view. 

"Let's get closer," said Zach, but Savannah grabbed his arm. "No, don't. You don't know him like I do. He'd attack us instead of them." 

"He's really sick to do something like this," said Zach. "All he did the whole time was lie." 

Savannah nodded. Her betrayed love was turning into a black hatred. He had lied to her, used her, hurt her, and all at the expense of Chamelemon, who had never done them any harm. "I hope they kill him." 

There came the sound of running footsteps on grass, and they turned to see Rick and Tithonia pelting toward them, followed by Frogmon and Mulemon. Trailing them at a walk was Tithonia's mother, who was deep in conversation with a police officer. 

"Where did that thing come from?" panted Rick, jamming his data stick into his digivice to make Frogmon digivolve. "Digimon can't get here unless they're Digidestined, right?" 

"He's Hissmon," said Savannah hollowly. "He just told us. He faked being my partner." 

"I brought that old digivice," said Tithonia, holding it up, but her eyes were fixed on Komodomon. "Can we fight him? I mean, he's so huge..." 

"That's Hissmon?" said Rick, eyes bugging out. "No way! Did he go bad?" 

"He was always bad," spat Zach. "He pretended to be her partner, and Chamelemon was really her partner the whole time." 

"Oh man," said Rick. "That's like having your girlfriend cheat on you. Bullfrogmon, kill him, will you?" 

"I'll do my best, but I'm only a champion," said Bullfrogmon, looking worried under his curled horns. "Mulemon, you coming?" "Give me a second," said Mulemon, as Tithonia digivolved her to MetalChargermon. The winged donkey shook her short mane and said, "Okay, let's go." 

The two hurried away in the direction of the battle. 

As the four kids gazed at the dragon, digivices in hand to watch for damage, Tithonia's mother walked up and stood beside them. "I settled things with the police," she said. "You know they were going to arrest you after this was over?" 

"They were? Why?" 

"You resisted arrest." Mrs. Harris folded her arms and gazed at the dragon in the distance. "How are they doing?" 

"Thornmon has fifteen percent damage," said Zach, watching his digivice. 

"Ooh," said Rick. "Bullfrogmon just took forty-three percent." Everyone winced. Rick pulled out the red 'revive' wafer the digimon had given him the day before, and fingered it. 

"Do any of you kids have a phone?" said Mrs. Harris. Zach pulled out his, showed her how to work it, and resumed watching the battle. The damage levels on the four digivices were rising. In the distance Komodomon had abandoned his perch on the building and was writing, knotting himself, and whipping about, his robot limbs catching the morning sunlight. Occasionally their digimon would come into view in mid-leap, or actually on the dragon's back in Knifemon's case, plunging his sword into the dragon's flesh over and over. 

The minutes ticked by, and damage percentages continued to rise. When Bullfrogmon reached 90% he retreated from the battle and limped back to them. One foreleg and hind leg were broken, and he was covered in deep slashes. One of his eyes had been damaged, and he dragged himself to Rick with his head turned to one side. "Sorry," he gasped. "I couldn't win..." 

Rick looked at his red wafer, then up at his three teammates. Then he carefully broke off a fourth of the wafer and fed it to his frog. 

Zach watched as Thornmon's damage levels jumped from 70% to 80%, and dashed toward the battle. He switched on his shield as he ran, and pulled his goggles over his eyes. If Spikemon died...! He arrived at Komodomon's feet and saw Thornmon pinned to the ground under one of Komodomon's massive metal claws. The dragon's head was nowhere in sight, but its weight was being pressed on Thornmon. "Somebody help me!" Zach yelled, trying to pry one of the couch-sized toes off his digimon. 

Knifemon appeared out of nowhere, his clothing torn and bloodied, but there was dragon blood on his swords. "We're outmatched," he told Zach, and sprang away over the dragon's scaly back to attack the leg joint. Zach waited several long seconds, and smelled the dragon's stench, like a reptile store in the summer. Spikemon had never smelled that way. 

The leg twitched, and the coil of dragon above them shifted. All at once Thornmon opened his eyes and scrambled out from under the monster's foot, coughing. Zach could not lift him, but he urged his partner on until they were under the trees, and not so close to Komodomon. Then Thornmon collapsed and lay still, his tongue hanging out. One of his metal arms looked as if something had chewed on it. His helmet was dented, and his hind legs and tail were mauled and bleeding. The digivice announced that he was now 96% damaged. 

Zach wiped away tears and crouched beside his partner's head. "Can I de-volve you? Will it hurt?" 

"Everything hurts," grunted Thornmon. "We can't beat him, Zach." 

"You're only an ultimate, I shouldn't have let you fight him," said Zach. 

Thornmon lifted his head and tried to get up. "But I can't fail! The others, they're still out there, I--" He sank back down, coughing. Zach pulled out the data sticks, and watched Thornmon shrink into Spikemon, hurt in the same places he had been while Ultimate. The green dinosaur looked up at Zach. "We can't beat him. We all attacked together and it didn't work." Zach was shocked to see tears well up in Spikemon's eyes. "I lost a fight." 

Zach carried him back to the others, knowing he was getting blood on his clothes, and not caring. Bullfrogmon was now Frogmon, and looked better since he had had the revive wafer. Rick broke off a piece of his wafer and handed it to Zach. "It'll keep him alive." 

Spikemon ate the tidbit, then curled up and closed his eyes. 

Tithonia and Savannah looked at the boys' digimon, then looked at each other in horror. There were only two digimon left, and only Savannah's was a mega. 

MetalChargermon only lasted another five minutes before she came limping back, her wings damaged, dripping sweat, and with broken bones. She went to Tithonia and stood with her head down, trembling. Rick gave Tithonia a portion of his wafer, then handed the rest to Savannah. "Here. Your digimon is the last one." 

Savannah looked around at the defeated digimon, then bit a fingernail and looked at her digivice. Knifemon was 37% damaged and had not taken more in a while. He was a mega, after all. She gripped the piece of revive wafer and drifted toward the battle. Maybe he could win. Maybe her true partner would defeat her false partner. 

Zach looked up from Spikemon. "Where's Savannah?" 

Only Mrs. Harris responded. Still on the phone, she pointed toward the battle. Zach looked at Spikemon, whose damage was slowly ticking down through the eighties, then dashed after Savannah. Why was Tithonia's mother on the phone? It irked him. They were being slaughtered, and all she could do was gab. 

He found Savannah watching the battle from under the last row of trees. Zach stood beside her and watched, too. Komodomon had pulled his head out of hiding at last, and was snapping at Knifemon. The ninja looked like a cricket beside the massive dragon, but the dragon's back was scored with sword cuts. 

"They're still fighting," murmured Savannah. "Maybe Chamelemon will win." 

Knifemon sprang at Komodomon's head, climbed up the whiskers on his face, and made for one of his eyes. "Get him," whispered Savannah, clenching her fists. "Blind him!" 

Knifemon reached the dragon's eye, and they saw Komodomon's scaly lids close, then he tossed his head, snapping his teeth. "Hold on," Zach and Savannah murmured. "Don't let him bite you--" 

They saw the little black body fling itself clear of the dragon's head, and fall, fall, fall until he was lost from sight amid the dragon's coils. Komodomon's head darted downward, and Savannah cried out--Knifemon's damage level had shot to 60%, then to 90%, then 102%, then 130%, and it kept rising. "Knifemon!" Savannah screamed. 

Komodomon's head lifted into sight, so close they could see every whisker on his face and every detail of his bared teeth. He opened his mouth and dropped Knifemon, who fell senseless onto the dragon's back, slid down, and fell in a heap on the ground. Savannah ran toward him, right into the shadow of Komodomon's jaws, and Zach sprinted after her. "Savannah, wait, it's a trap!" He tackled her and threw her down as Komodomon came at them, all teeth and fierce eyes. Zach flung up an arm and felt the rush of the monster's breath-- 

There was a sound like a train wreck that split Zach's head and shook the ground, and Komodomon whipped his head away. Zach pried his eyes open. The dragon's mouth was foaming, and it was slinging its head to and fro as if in pain. Then Zach saw his shield, gleaming like a fragile bubble in the morning sunlight. A personal firewall, he remembered. 

He got up and helped up a stunned Savannah. "Quick, get Chamelemon. I'll keep him busy." 

"What happened?" she said, stumbling to her digimon and pulling out her data sticks. 

"My shield," said Zach. "It came on. Give him the wafer, hurry." 

"Oh, right." Savannah shoved the bit of red wafer into the chameleon's mouth and stroked his throat to make him swallow it. The she picked him up and hurried for the shelter of the trees. Zach remained behind, watching the dragon and knowing that if he turned his back, he would be unprotected. 

Drooling, Komodomon focused his red eyes on Zach. "Shields can be broken," he hissed. "Dart Fire!" He snapped his head forward and spat a rain of hot red arrows that poured down on Zach. He felt them impact on his shield, but stood firm, feet braced, and watched the fire wither the grass everywhere but under his shield. 

"You cannot hope to win now," snarled the dragon. "You have no weapons, no partners. All you have is one defense." He filled his lungs and breathed a cloud of fire that incinerated everything in the area, and the other Digidestined fled to the edge of the park with their digimon. Zach was knocked backwards by the sheer power of the blast, but when he scrambled up to face the dragon again, he was unharmed, and his shield was still on. 

Shakily he walked toward Komodomon and resumed his former spot, sneakers crunching on the ash that had been grass. "Why are you doing this?" he called. "What's so important that you kill and lie and destroy to get here?" 

"Because I hate humans," breathed Komodomon, flames licking through his teeth. "According to legend, the Programmer is a human from your world. And I'm going to kill him." 

"I thought you didn't believe in a Programmer," said Zach, remembering the debates between Spikemon and Hissmon on the subject. 

"The risk is too great," growled Komodomon. "If there is one, he will reformat our world and destroy me and my kind. No more will viruses kill and maim and fight and steal. No, this Programmer must die. But I want him to come to me. Your world is too large to hunt through." 

"I'm on his side," said Zach, knees trembling. "Killing and stealing is wrong and you know it." 

"It's an alternate lifestyle!" roared the dragon. "Who can say it's wrong?" He breathed another jet of flame at Zach. 

Again Zach picked himself up and resumed his place. Each time he was knocked down his courage slipped a little more. The batteries in his shield would not last forever, and facing the dragon's fury was wearing him down. But he couldn't run. The reason he could face Komodomon at all was because of Spikemon's data inside him, giving him Spikemon's courage to face down an enemy and not flee. 

"Dart Fire!" A rain of glowing arrows struck the ground around him and his shield, and Zach's knees buckled. "I can keep this up all day!" he shouted to give himself nerve. 

"I haven't begun my contact attacks yet," smiled the dragon. "I'll crush you like an insect." But his mouth was still foaming from the shield. 

Then his eyes widened and his nostrils flared at something behind Zach. Zach glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see Thornmon or Knifemon, and instead saw a single man picking his way across the burned-out park. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, but there was a fearlessness in his motions that riveted both Zach and Komodomon's attention. As he drew closer, Zach saw with a shudder that there was a wide pink scar across the man's face, and his arms had a shriveled look as if they had been mangled, then healed again. 

"Hello," he said as he reached Zach. "Are you okay?" 

"Yes sir," said Zach. "I've got a shield." 

The man glanced at Zach's belt. "Oh, a personal firewall. Good to have one of those. I'm Joshua Cunningham." 

Zach shook his hand, trying to remember where he had heard that name. 

Komodomon remembered first, and pulled his head back. "You're dead. Your partner failed to defend you, I know the story. You're dead." 

"My partner turned on me," said Joshua, "and left me with the marks of his affection." He motioned to his arms. Zach saw he was holding the old violet digivice. "I died in the Digital World, but I was sent back ... Komodomon, I understand you are seeking the Programmer." 

Zach looked at the dragon, and was glad he was not in Komodomon's place. The dragon was perfectly still, and something in the tilt of his head showed he was questioning the wisdom of his actions for the first time. "Yes," he rumbled. 

"I am the Programmer of the Digital World," said Joshua. "Why have you become a virus?" 

Komodomon reared up and hooked his claws in the sides of the building he had perched on earlier. "I am a virus because it is the noblest of the data types. And you're not the Programmer. You're a human--a puny, damaged human." 

Joshua was fingering the old digivice, and there was a look of sadness in his eyes. "Komodomon, you have damaged yourself. Do you know what your mega would have been if you were not a virus?" 

Komodomon lifted his head still higher. "Why would I want to be a Holy type? Their strongest attack is a healing one--why should I want that?" 

Joshua shook his head. "Komodomon, go back to the Digital World. You don't belong here." 

"I'll go where I want." The dragon's eyes narrowed. 

Zach looked at his companion. "If he breathes fire, you don't have a shield." 

Joshua raised a hand. "I know, son. I'll be all right. I made him." 

"I came to this world to kill you," said Komodomon. "No human needs to rule our world. And now, I'm going to kill both of you." He uncoiled himself in a rush and leaped at them, miles of body looping behind him. 

Zach stepped back, but Joshua caught his arm. "Hold up your digivice." Zach obeyed, shaking. Beside him, Joshua lifted his own device and the two humans faced the dragon's charge. 

Komodomon gathered himself and leaped, throwing himself up over the two, and let himself fall, intending to crush them. His scaled underbelly came down like a ceiling, and Zach flinched and shut his eyes. But nothing happened. He opened his eyes and saw the dragon had frozen just above them, and there were beams of light streaming out of their devices. 

Joshua looked grim. "When I say so, press the blue button." 

The dragon's body was turning shades of blue, and Zach could see it was made of little squares. The dragon's head turned and he peered down at them. "I guess you are the Programmer," he whispered. 

"Now," said Joshua, and they pressed their blue buttons. 

Komodomon shrank to his ultimate, which had four legs, then his champion, which had two, then his rookie, which had none--for an instant Hissmon looked at Zach with pure hatred--then to his in-training, and then vaporized into a mist that was sucked into their digivices. 

Zach sat down hard and looked at his digivice. Then he looked up at Joshua. "Th-thanks." 

"No problem," said the Programmer. He helped Zach to his feet. "Do you have a partner, or do you just face down dragons for fun?" 

"It's a hobby," said Zach, and laughed. It felt good to laugh. "My partner is Spikemon." 

"Oh, him," said Joshua, leading the way across the burned park. "He's one of the exceptional ones. So how many Digidestined are there now?" 

"Four." Zach detailed their adventures as they walked, and waved to his friends out in the street as they approached. 

Joshua grinned. "This is what makes my job worthwhile. Hi guys." 

"Everybody," said Zach to his friends, "this is the Programmer, Joshua Cunningham." 

All four digimon were in decent shape by this time, due to the effects of the revive wafer. When he heard this, Spikemon limped up and bowed at Joshua's feet. "I've believed in you my whole life!" 

Joshua knelt and lifted him up. "I'm glad some of you still believe in me. I see you still like to fight." 

Spikemon hung his head, embarrassed. 

Frogmon gazed up at Joshua and became mute, like a young child. No matter what anyone said, he would not say a word. But Mulemon walked up and introduced herself, and impertinently asked him if he thought pink armor would fit her better than red. 

Last of all Joshua knelt over Chamelemon, who was awake, but so damaged he could not move. Savannah shook Joshua's hand, and he said, "I'm sorry about what Hissmon did to you. Digimon have minds of their own." 

"I've noticed," she said, and smiled. 

After that they went to the police station and made a statement about the events of that morning. Then they had breakfast in an outdoor restaurant. The appetites of the digimon were as large as ever, and even Chamelemon managed thirds. As it turned out, Tithonia's mother had been friends with Joshua for years, and had called him as soon as she learned Komodomon wanted the Programmer. Joshua lived in a different part of the country, but fortunately was visiting relatives only a few miles from Hilldale, and sped into town. He had been delayed by police, who had wanted to arrest him when he told them he had made the dragon. But he had talked them out of it. 

"How does anyone make another word?" asked Savannah, spreading jam on her toast. 

Joshua smiled and shook his head. "It was an idea my Dad and some friends had. He was a metaphysics professor, and his idea was that there are billions of universes growing off this one, and that with the right tools, we could harness one of those shadow-dimensions and program inside it. But it worked too well. On this side, it looks like computer programs, but on that side, the programs are the reality." Joshua paused and took a bite of sausage. "It's a real place and you can really go there, but the danger is real, too." He rubbed his scarred hands together. 

"What happened?' said Zach. 

Joshua smiled a nostalgic sort of smile. "I was the first Digidestined, to test out the world. In the beginning we thought it best that you have a whole gang of digimon to protect you. But one of my teammates went virus, drove off the rest and killed me. My digital self died, but they pulled me back here before my real self could die, and rushed me to a hospital." He shook his head. "We trimmed it down to one partner after that." 

"So it's really dangerous," said Tithonia, eyes wide. 

Joshua nodded. "Sure. All worlds are dangerous. But does that mean you shouldn't live? Think of all you'd miss if all you worried about was the danger." 

He looked at his watch. "Well kids, I need to go to work. And..." He paused with his hand on his chair. 

"Well done, Digidestined." 

_The End_


End file.
